PROMPT RESPONSE

Any new environmental issue that occurs this academic term or during the remainder of the school year or any other time following that would not be allowed to disintegrate further, but rather it would be addressed immediately.

This assurance came from the new Principal of the Combermere School, Vincent Fergusson, who spoke to The Barbados Advocate yesterday after he addressed the school body on his first official day in his new post.

He stated that should any environmental issues come up again, he would be one of the first persons to know and he would report it to the relevant authorities at the Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation and then they would work together to address these issues immediately.

“However, if there are any new issues to the environment, I would be the first one to pick it up or I should be the first one to pick it up and I would report them to my bosses in the Ministry (of Education) and we would see if we could address them almost immediately.”

As for the first day of school, Fergusson said that this has gone quite well so far with a timely start to the morning assembly and while there were a few hiccups prior to the start with some of the new students not exactly sure where to go, this is normal for students when they are starting a new school.
“We started about 8:45 this morning, which is the usual starting time. It took them a little bit longer to get them settled this morning as this is the first morning and the First Years were not sure as to where to go and what to do and the Fifth Years were not so sure either. But generally, they take about five minutes to get into the hall and settle themselves down,” he noted.

However, once this was over, the students were able to settle down easily, were attentive during the assembly and followed all of the instructions that were given out to them and these crop of students reminded him of the set of students that he would have taught previously when he was at the school before he left for Coleridge and Parry School, only to return years later.

“They are very responsive. As I told them, they are very much like the set that I left here. They have a good sense of humour, they responded well to the instructions of the Deputy Principal to remain quiet when she asked them to be quiet. In less than 30 seconds, there was a deafening silence in the hall and I think that is what we need here in Barbados, for our young people to follow instructions and to comply,” he noted.

The school has about 60 teaching staff, 18 to 20 auxiliary staff and a little over 1 000 students.