At 11 pm on July 3, when Ebraheem Jdid logged in to the Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) exam portal, he did not think the results would show Holy Cross College.
“I was surprised that I passed for that school, I did not feel like I was going to pass there, but I tried my best and I did it,” he said.
The 13-year-old’s uncertainty stemmed from the fact that he had only ten months to study for the SEA exam.
But with the dedication of a retired teacher, who’s also a family friend, Jdid was able to succeed.
Right before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Arima Presbyterian school student travelled to Syria to visit family. But soon after, the borders were closed and commercial flights were suspended.
It took Jdid and his family at least four years to return to T&T and during that time, the little English he knew began to fade. When he returned, he was able to enrol back into his old school and received the help of retired teacher Omella Achong.
“It is his principal who told me, ‘Omella, I think we should give him a chance’, and I was very worried and very concerned because I know the volume of work that needs to be done to write this exam,” she said.
During an interview at her Arima yesterday, Achong explained that Jdid relearned English by reading books, watching movies and from his friends in school.
“We were talking to him in English, and of course, when he was in school, he learned a lot from friends...I had to continue to remind him that he had to write in English from left to right ... also when we had to do the multiplication tables, he was working it out in Arabic, and then when he had to complete his mathematics, he had to translate,” she shared.
However, he eventually began doing better with the practice tests.
But the retired teacher with 27 years of experience admitted that Jdid faced burnout coming down to the end, and she had to find ways to motivate him.
“I would tell him, you know what, we will go and play football,” she said.
Jdid scored above 80 per cent in both Mathematics and Language Arts. In Language writing, the teen’s grade was average.
He already has big plans for his new school.
“Play football, get friends, be a top student there and impress Omella,” he said.
Something he has already done, but in case she did not know, he elaborated
“Thank you so much, and thank you for helping me in a difficult position,” he added.
Achong recalled that when she first met Jdid in their community in 2016, she had no idea the role the little boy, who she said reminded her of her eldest son, would have on her life.
“I realised that they did not have very many relatives here and we became their ‘relatives’ here,” she said.
She encouraged those who can to be their “neighbour’s keeper.”
