The Na­tion­al Ju­nior Panora­ma Fi­nals Com­pe­ti­tion 2025, re­gard­ed as the fu­ture of the na­tion­al in­stru­ment, was well sup­port­ed yes­ter­day as a ram-packed North Stand and Drag of the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah lis­tened to pan mu­sic.

Each per­for­mance—across the Pri­ma­ry Schools, Sec­ondary Schools, and 21 & Un­der Cat­e­go­ry —was greet­ed with an­i­mat­ed ap­plause and screams from par­ents, stu­dents and pan lovers.

In the Pri­ma­ry Schools cat­e­go­ry, out of 12 schools, San Fer­nan­do Boys’ RC School placed first, fol­lowed in sec­ond by St Mar­garet’s Boys’ AC School and in third by Febeau Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School.

In the Sec­ondary Schools cat­e­go­ry, Bish­op Anstey and Trin­i­ty East Sec­ondary came first, while St Fran­cois Girls’ Col­lege and Na­pari­ma Col­lege’s Com­bined Steel Or­ches­tra tied for sec­ond.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, a “pan-par­ent” her­self, said she was elat­ed to see the hun­dreds of stu­dents en­joy­ing her cul­ture.

“I know this event feeds the se­nior pan and it is just a won­der­ful thing to see the pride of these schools and to see more schools join­ing with some of our se­nior Pan sides and get­ting in on the cul­ture.

“It’s more than just the mu­sic; it’s about the de­vel­op­ment of our cit­i­zens, and we are just so proud and hap­py to see them per­form­ing this way,” she said.

Ac­cord­ing to Gads­by-Dol­ly, her min­istry has made a con­cert­ed ef­fort to in­crease the num­ber of schools with pan tu­tors.

“We now have 100, and that’s a de­ci­sion that has been tak­en by the gov­ern­ment to in­crease the num­ber to en­sure that we have more cov­er­age for our stu­dents,” she said.

In the Grand Stand, nod­ding her head up and down in her wheel­chair to the sound of sweet pan, re­tiree Ann-Marie Bourne com­pli­ment­ed the stan­dard on dis­play.

“Every­thing sound­ing very nice. They play­ing re­al nice. I’m en­joy­ing it.

“I didn’t come for a few years be­cause I dam­aged my foot, but I came this morn­ing be­cause my lit­tle great niece is play­ing with St Fran­cois Girls’ Col­lege,” she said.

Over on the Drag, well-known artist Don­ald “Jack­ie” Hink­son sketched the scene of the Na­pari­ma Com­bined Steel Or­ches­tra mak­ing its way to the stage.

Pen­cil in hand, he said he came out to take in the at­mos­phere.

“It’s a mas­sive com­po­nent in the cul­tur­al scene and any­thing that cap­ti­vates the gen­er­al pub­lic and the mass­es is al­so im­por­tant in our his­to­ry, the evo­lu­tion of our so­ci­ety and our cul­tur­al ex­pres­sion,” he said.

Short­ly af­ter per­form­ing for San Fer­nan­do Girls’ Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School, nine-year-old Lamia Jones hugged her friends.

“It was good. This was my first time. I was re­al­ly shy but I pushed through,” she said.

Her pan teacher, Ke­van Cal­liste, was proud of Lamia and the or­ches­tra’s oth­er mem­bers.

He said this was on­ly the sec­ond time that the school en­tered the com­pe­ti­tion.

“It was amaz­ing. They per­formed at 100% and that’s all I asked them to do. I felt proud see­ing all of them fi­nal­ly do­ing it and putting it all to­geth­er. Pan is re­al­ly amaz­ing. It’s an amaz­ing in­stru­ment. I’ve seen it re­al­ly open up dif­fer­ent av­enues for young peo­ple. It’s al­so a safe space for peo­ple,” he said.

Fif­teen-year-old Miguel Gomez of South East Port-of-Spain Gov­ern­ment and his pan mates posed for a pic­ture af­ter his first time play­ing on the famed sa­van­nah stage.

“This is my first year play­ing pan. The on­ly rea­son I start­ed play­ing pan was be­cause my teacher, we had an as­sign­ment in class. He said if you play in Panora­ma, you will get 50% of your end-of-term mark, and when I did it, I end­ed up en­joy­ing it,” he said.