Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

St Joseph’s Con­vent San Fer­nan­do is shap­ing more than high-achiev­ing stu­dents—it is cul­ti­vat­ing young women ground­ed in char­ac­ter, dis­ci­pline and faith, prin­ci­pal Joanne Bak­er said on Wednes­day.

Em­pha­sis­ing that ed­u­ca­tion at the school goes be­yond aca­d­e­mics, Bak­er said that equal fo­cus is placed on build­ing a strong moral foun­da­tion.

Dur­ing her ad­dress at the school’s Pa­tronal Feast Day and Recog­ni­tion of Ex­cel­lence Cer­e­mo­ny for the 2024–2025 term, she said the in­sti­tu­tion is more than a place of learn­ing—it is a com­mu­ni­ty guid­ed by a no­ble mis­sion root­ed in a rich re­li­gious tra­di­tion.

“Here, we are en­trust­ed not on­ly with the de­vel­op­ment of in­tel­lect, but with the for­ma­tion of char­ac­ter and spir­it. We pre­pare young women who will in­her­it and in­flu­ence our so­ci­ety, and we do so with in­ten­tion,” she said.

Bak­er said they want stu­dents to in­stinc­tive­ly prac­tice in­tegri­ty and hon­esty, to val­ue hard work and dis­ci­pline, and to rise with re­silience when faced with chal­lenges, strength­ened by their en­counter with God.

“We want them to pur­sue jus­tice, fair­ness, and to ho­n­our the in­her­ent dig­ni­ty of every per­son. This is the Sapi­en­tia et Sci­en­tia—Wis­dom and Knowl­edge—that guides us. For aca­d­e­m­ic knowl­edge, when sep­a­rat­ed from wis­dom, com­pas­sion or in­tegri­ty, los­es its true sig­nif­i­cance.”

She ex­plained that it’s the school’s be­lief that the whole per­son is mul­ti-faceted: en­riched by the arts and sport, ground­ed in faith, con­nect­ed to na­ture and ca­pa­ble of con­struc­tive cri­tique and ser­vant lead­er­ship.

Not­ing that this holis­tic for­ma­tion is the heart of their mis­sion, Bak­er ac­knowl­edged the ded­i­ca­tion, dis­ci­pline and per­se­ver­ance of stu­dents in aca­d­e­m­ic, co-cur­ric­u­lar and ex­tra-cur­ric­u­lar pur­suits.

She said their achieve­ments re­flect not on­ly their hard work, but al­so the com­mit­ment of their teach­ers, par­ents and men­tors.

At the recog­ni­tion cer­e­mo­ny, sev­er­al awards were pre­sent­ed to schol­ar­ship win­ners and stu­dents who ex­celled at var­i­ous lev­els.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, a past stu­dent, was al­so in at­ten­dance.