SAN­DRA L BLOOD

blood­san­dral@ya­hoo.com

Ter­rence Wil­son re­mem­bers the day 12 years ago when he cut the rib­bon to of­fi­cial­ly open the Vic­to­ry Acad­e­my of Learn­ing (VAL), a pri­vate pri­ma­ry school.

“It was my wife, Di­ann Je­re­mie-Wil­son, the prin­ci­pal, and my res­i­den­tial home, but with­in three days a school evolved,” he said.

“There was a dire need for chil­dren to be at school. Not sim­ply a school, but one that will as­sist in shap­ing chil­dren in­to ex­em­plary role mod­els to the world, start­ing from their com­mu­ni­ty.”

At the start, 65 stu­dents were en­rolled, but by the end of the sec­ond term, they had to find an­oth­er build­ing be­cause the stu­dent pop­u­la­tion had grown be­yond 100. Pre-school and in­fants re­mained at the pri­vate res­i­dence but a build­ing was rent­ed in St Au­gus­tine for the se­niors.

“The first year, Stan­dard Four was the high­est lev­el but due to con­tin­u­ing de­mands for place­ments, we even­tu­al­ly in­clud­ed Lev­el Five. We be­gan gain­ing suc­cess in SEA with stu­dents in the first 100 al­most every year, and con­sis­tent­ly, first 200,” Wil­son re­called.

This year has been very suc­cess­ful for VAL in the SEA ex­am with 93 per cent of the stu­dents se­cur­ing their first-choice schools. One stu­dent, Analee Nedd, ex­celled in Math­e­mat­ics.

The school’s SEA teach­ers are Kim­ber­ly An­toine and Di­ann Je­re­mie-Wil­son. Wil­son point­ed out: “We’re ground­ed by our mot­to: With God All Things Are Pos­si­ble, our tag line ‘The Dif­fer­ence Is Ex­cel­lence,’ and the stu­dents’ dai­ly af­fir­ma­tion, ‘I’m An Ex­cel­lent Leader and I Will Lead My­self.’ We al­so en­gage in a ro­bust yet ap­pro­pri­ate­ly-man­aged, struc­tured ex­tra-cur­ric­u­lar pro­gramme con­sti­tut­ing sport, mu­sic and dance.

“We are ded­i­cat­ed to pro­vid­ing an en­vi­ron­ment where the child’s in­tel­lec­tu­al abil­i­ties and self-es­teem grow hand-in-hand as moral and eth­i­cal val­ues are in­stilled, while not com­pro­mis­ing the stan­dard of cur­ricu­lum de­liv­ery.” He said the main ob­jec­tive is to sup­port stu­dents in their growth.

“We thrive on ex­cel­lence. The com­bi­na­tion has proven suc­cess­ful hence our re­sults are on a gen­er­al plateau. On av­er­age, over 90 per cent ad­vance to their first choice. We are very ded­i­cat­ed to every as­pect of a child’s de­vel­op­ment that em­braces spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al, re­la­tion­al, men­tal and so­cial,” Wil­son ex­plained.

“From pre-school, the stu­dents are ex­posed to rel­e­vant self-de­vel­op­ment skills and ac­tiv­i­ties in­clud­ing ad­mirable con­flict man­age­ment. Sta­tis­tics have proven the im­por­tance of rais­ing lead­ers who will con­tribute pos­i­tive­ly to the world from an ear­ly age, so we do our part and pride our self in our suc­cess rate.

“At the preschool and in­fant lev­els, a foun­da­tion of so­cial­i­sa­tion and ac­cept­able be­hav­iour is laid, with em­pha­sis on self-ex­pres­sion and dis­play of skills and tal­ents.”

VAL’s vice-prin­ci­pal is Onei­ka Valere and the oth­er mem­bers of the teach­ing staff are Dil­lon Wil­son, Khadi­ja An­toine, Tonya Fred­er­ick, Kim Williams and Her­ma Na­gas­sars­ingh-Ma­haraj.

“Our stu­dents, teach­ers and par­ents are ap­pre­ci­at­ed for their co­op­er­a­tion, and we look for­ward to an­oth­er safe, ex­cit­ing and pro­duc­tive aca­d­e­m­ic year,” Wil­son said.

In this year’s ex­am, VAL had two stu­dents each placed at Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege, Bish­op Anstey High School East, Bon Air Sec­ondary.

Oth­ers have earned places at Hillview, St George’s, Trin­i­ty East, St Mary’s, Caribbean Union Col­leges, Bish­op Anstey High School, St Joseph’s Con­vent, St Joseph, North-East­ern Col­lege and St James Sec­ondary.