Kali­fa Clyne

Two na­tion­al schol­ar­ships, awards for plac­ing in the top ten in the Caribbean in CSEC ex­ams and count­less oth­er cer­tifi­cates were dis­trib­uted to stu­dents yes­ter­day dur­ing the St Fran­cois Girls' Col­lege achieve­ment awards cer­e­mo­ny at Queen's Hall, St Ann's. The two schol­ar­ship win­ners were Dian­drea James and Ariel Lawrence. James al­so won the Up­per Six Form prize for her class. Awards al­so were pre­sent­ed to the school's Panora­ma cham­pi­ons, drag­on boat team, net­ball cham­pi­ons, track and field re­lay team and foot­ball cham­pi­ons. Stu­dents who took part in the World of Work In­tern­ship Pro­gramme al­so got cer­tifi­cates. More than 30 com­pa­nies in var­i­ous busi­ness sec­tors in T&T part­nered with the school dur­ing the Au­gust va­ca­tion to pro­vide in­tern­ship op­por­tu­ni­ties for stu­dents of the school.

De­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress, the school's for­mer prin­ci­pal, Jan­ice Black­man, en­cour­aged the stu­dents to take ad­van­tage of the op­por­tu­ni­ties pro­vid­ed by the school. "Women, in­clud­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­lene Mc Don­ald, have tak­en lead­er­ship po­si­tions," said Black­man. Black­man, who was one of the first teach­ers at the school when it opened in 1962, re­flect­ed on her past ex­pe­ri­ences. She said the school had opened with 140 stu­dents and four class­rooms and had been a suc­cess from the very be­gin­ning. Black­man said it had from the be­gin­ning placed great em­pha­sis on char­ac­ter-build­ing. "We stressed on la­dy-like be­hav­iour at all times, even when par­ty­ing and play­ing mas," she added.