Form 1 students pass CXC CSEC Subjects at The St George’s Institute

by Sorana Mitchell

A Form 1 student at the 2-year-old private secondary school, The St George’s Institute (SGI), in Tempe, St George, wrote 2 subjects for CSEC 2022 and received grade ones.

At the time of writing the Electronic Document Preparation Management (EDPM) and Physical Education and Sport, Adam Purcell was only 12 years old. Purcell and 4 other students, Rhia Gittens, Aleesha Gittens-Baptiste, Johnathan Bedeau, and Thaj Marshall, were part of a pilot project at the school allowing Form 1 students to write CSEC. The 4 only wrote EDPM.

Principal of SGI and mother of Purcell, Samantha Antoine-Purcell, said that people have made external examinations into a great challenge that it isn’t. She said there isn’t an age limit for which a candidate can register for an examination.

Antoine-Purcell noted that SGI has a collaborative curriculum, first of its kind in Grenada, being delivered through a blended approach, and students begin preparations for examinations from the first year.

The school had 45 students sitting examinations in 25 different subjects: Form 1 had 5 candidates, Form 2 had 1, Form 3 had 4 students, Form 4 had 18 while there were 17 candidates from Form 5. In total, they achieved a 95% pass rate, up from 92% last year.

The principal added that “a child sitting 20 subjects in Form 5 is not necessarily in that child’s best interest, given the effort and lack of balance in activities that it implies. Instead, if a child can write CSEC examinations throughout their secondary school journey, they are able to engage in every other thing…”

Preliminary results for CXC CSEC were released on 5 September 2022. CSEC is the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate introduced by the Caribbean Examinations Council in 1998.