Gordon Greenidge Primary pupils encouraged to protect their ‘goodly heritage’

 

 

“This is a good school. You have a goodly heritage and you must maintain that.”

 

Governor General of Barbados, His Excellency Sir Elliott Belgrave left this message with the principal, teachers and students of the Gordon Greenidge Primary School, yesterday. His comments came as he paid an official visit to the educational institution, located in St. Peter.

 

During his address, Sir Elliott pointed out that the students should be proud that their school bears the name of one of West Indies’ celebrated opening batsmen, Gordon Greenidge.

 

“Mr. Greenidge made West Indies and Barbados proud with his exploits with the bat. He was an excellent cricketer and the school has done well to bear his name,” Sir Elliott remarked.

 

He then added, “The record shows that this school has a fine record. Last year, the pass mark in English was some 68.8 per cent and that in Maths was somewhat lower, 52.4 per cent and the marks combined were above the national average. The school must be congratulated therefore for its excellent work and I congratulate the present principal and those principals who went before her, for their wonderful devotion to duty and for the excellent results received for this school. I say well done to the principal, teachers and students for these excellent results.”

 

The Governor General also expressed his hope that those students who would have completed the Common Entrance Exam on May 3 of this year, would also score well and maintain the high standards left by their predecessors.

 

Declaring that he had come to bring some of the “good news” he often shares with pupils during his official school visits, Sir Elliott encouraged students to work along with their teachers, for the best results.

 

“I want the children at the primary schools to continue to respect themselves, respect their school, respect their teachers and don’t fight them. Teachers have a responsibility. Schools serve a purpose and the government spends a lot of money in trying to keep up these establishments and pay teachers from time to time. A lot of the wealth of the country is spent on education and rightly so, because we haven’t got many natural resources and our principle resource is our people. Successive governments spent lots of money in seeking to educate our youth. So the children from humble backgrounds must be able to appreciate what is being done for them, because the securing of a sound education, is one of the surest and safest ways of rising from the bottom,” Sir Elliott said.

 

The Governor General then thanked the teachers and staff for the fine entertainment package put on in his honour, which consisted of a violin selection, a dance, a rhythm poem, a special presentation entitled “What Barbados Means To Me” and two renditions by the choir, one of which was “The Ash Grove”, which received a standing ovation from the Governor General.