‘Rewarding Year’ celebrated at York Castle High School’s Prize Giving

York Castle High School held its Annual Prize Giving and Awards Ceremony in an optimistic and celebratory mood underpinned by what principal Raymon Treasure established as a “rewarding year” for the school.

The ceremony was held in the school’s auditorium, Brown’s Town, Thursday, November 17.

In his report, Mr. Treasure highlighted the spectacular and outstanding performance of students in the CSEC and CAPE examinations, and said that the school was, in effect, the “University of Brown’s Town”. He said York Castle offered one of the most comprehensive secondary and post-secondary curricula in this region. The school currently offers 36 CSEC subjects and 20 CAPE subjects at Units 1 & 2. He said the school now enjoys a performance rate of over 90 percent in 21 of the 36 CSEC subjects offered.

Mr Treasure informed those in attendance, including students, staff,parents, board members and Ministry of Education officials that York Castle was now ranked in the top 15 of the nearly one hundred and fifty secondary schools in the country.

In continuing to highlight the rewarding performance of the students, Mr. Treasure said (94.7%) of the students sitting CSEC examinations in 2016 passed five or more subjects, including English Language. In reality, this meant that only 12 of the more than 225 of the Grade 11 cohort of 2016 left York Castle without passing five subjects.

He challenged the students in the current Grade 11 cohort to improve on the performance of the 2016 group. He also challenged them to be counted among the high achievers next year and not among the few not achieving five subjects or more, in 2017.

He said that the school’s academic performance and achievements represented “the accomplishment of all of us” and he thanked stakeholders for their partnership with the school. These included the church, the PTA, the alumni and corporate groups.

Turning to other areas of achievement outside of academics, Mr. Treasure said the school participated in several competitive sporting disciplines and co-curricular activities to “expose students to everything” so they would have awareness and knowledge even if they did not achieve top performance in those areas. He said the school participated in several ISSA organized competitions including: football, basketball, netball, cricket, athletics, rugby and volleyball. The school did very well in a number of these activities.

In other extra curricula activities, Bobby Francis won the National Public Speaking Competition, York Castle won the police-sponsored Area 2 School’s Debate, and reached the quarter finals of the National School’s Debate and the Math Club won the regional mathematics championship. The school also excelled in the cultural activities organized by the JCDC.

One of the school’s past students Natalie Campbell delivered the main address and asked students and teachers to contemplate the questions “Who am I? Why Am I here? And What is my mission”. Ms Campbell, news director at IRIE FM challenged the students to bring out the “real you” everyday and, citing the school’s motto, told them nothing is achieved without hard work. She counseled them to use the opportunities that were available and to stick to their values and principles.

She was introduced by, Mikhail Treasure, Student Council president.

The school choir drew rousing applause for its presentation of ‘My Time to Shine’ and the nine-member Steel Orchestra did an energetic piece. The Dance Troupe led by Layon Brown also presented a very inspirational piece.

Academic awards were presented to students from Grade 7 to 13.

Awards were presented for outstanding performers in CSEC and CAPE. The top CSEC awardee was Chanoye Lee who passed 11 subjects achieving nine distinctions.

The top CAPE awardee for 2016 was Rodean Sylvester who passed five subjects (mathematics, chemistry, biology, Spanish and communication) with five with distinctions.

Several teachers and support staff were also awarded for their contribution to school improvement in the last academic year. Julia-Coombs Robinson was recognized as the Teacher of the Year, Latoya Bradshaw, the Form Teacher of the Year; Elaine Bailey, the Administrative Staff of the Year, and Clifford Wallace as the Ancillary Staff of the Year. The Business and ICT Department was recognized as the most outstanding department of the year. All the top staff and student awardees were also presented with a performance incentive of $25,000.

The ceremony was brought to a close with a dedication and prayer for their long-awaited school bus that had arrived on November 16. Many thanks were expressed to parents who contributed to the school development funds as well as to outstanding alumnus and board director Martin Gooden, for the exceptional financial guidance that was provided in helping the school to secure the necessary funding to acquire a new school bus to replace the old one.

Chairman of the function was school’s chaplain Reverend Athlone Harrison.

Several subjects at 100% pass rate

In highlighting subjects at which one hundred percent pass was gained at CSEC last sitting, Raymon Treasure listed the following: