The Brown’s Town Methodist Church Hall in St Ann was the venue for the Hillcove High Achievers Preparatory School’s graduation on Tuesday, July 4.
This ceremony marked the sixth school leaving exercise at the school which caters for students from Kindergarten one through to grade six.
On Tuesday, the school graduated 18 students from Kindergarten three and 20 grade six students. This is the largest batch of students to have graduated.
The ceremony was called to order by Pastor Minerva Diedrick who also did the prayer.
Welcome was done by graduate Vanessa Harrison and scriptures read by two others, Shanique Williams and Kristan Codner.
The programme was chaired by Adrian Henry, a teacher from the St Ann’s Bay Primary School. Mr Henry echoed the theme of the graduation, throughout the ceremony: “Raise the Bar, Reach the Star — Effecting the Change”.
Shelly-Ann Allen, National Commercial Bank (NCB) branch manager for Brown’s Town was the guest speaker. Ms Allen congratulated the graduating class and their parents on their success. The bank made a cash donation to the school, geared “towards development”.
Her address was based on being proactive and how parents can effectively guide their children. She outlined six steps to apply in these times when “things are changing and our children are getting smarter.” She also challenged the graduates to “remain level headed and very focused on what is important”.
Greetings were brought by Dr Carol Dcaccio– from the Ministry of Education; Leroy Harvey, vice principal of the Moneague College and Ivan Anderson.
The GSAT class this year did exceptionally well, resulting in principal Adita Sherwood saying she was feeling “as proud as a peacock”.
Mrs. Sherwood began her year in review by singing a portion of a song she believes reflects the progress of the school, ‘It gets sweeter as the years go by’.
Mrs Sherwood said “sometimes we feel we wouldn’t go on but we trod along because we know we have your children in our care”. She said the school faced several challenges and that “thieves came in sometimes twice per week”. She said many of the resources that were needed to efficiently run the school were taken by the predators.
Amidst the set back caused during the academic year, the school still managed to stay afloat and participated in events such as karate, dance, speech, drama, sign language and JCDC competitions.
Mrs Sherwood also spoke of the great academic achievements for this school year. The Hillcove High Achievers Preparatory School boasts excellent results in the 2017 Grade six Achievement Test, with 15 of the 19 candidates being placed at traditional high schools. The average grades for all the subjects are over 90%, except for Language Arts with an average over 85%.
Students will be moving on to schools such as St Hilda’s High, Holland High, York Castle High, Ocho Rios High, Ferncourt High and Holmwood Technical High School.
“Education is like farming, sometimes you plant and don’t get anything,” Mrs Sherwood said as she encouraged the parents not to give up on their children but to help them to do their best at whatever they choose to do. She also urged the parents to not only focus on the placements, but also the averages of the students. “Grow where you are planted…”
The school is not only celebrating good results in GSAT but also the excellent work done in the grade three diagnostic test and the grade four literacy and numeracy test.
Additionally, with the exceptional performance of the grade six students this school year, three girls and one boy were awarded top students instead of the usual, one boy and one girl.
One of the top girls, Jensine Chunnu, who should have been a grade five student, was placed in grade six as a result of what Mrs Sherwood calls an “experiment that worked”. Jensine copped quite a number of the awards including, third overall academic placement and special award for outstanding performance in social studies and science.
The other top girls are Taryn Williamson (first place) and Kristian Codner (second place). Micah Hyde was the top boy, followed by Ethan Tromans.
Each of the first place top students was gifted with a total of J$35,000 from sponsors.
Other awards were presented to students from other grades who have also done well for the academic year. Other graduants were presented with trophies for excellence in various subject area and improvement.
The programme saw performances from graduating class and other performing arts groups from within the school.
