As St Gabriel’s Primary School celebrated securing both the top boy and top girl in this year’s Barbados Secondary Schools’ Entrance Examination, teachers are warning that declining English results nationwide point to an urgent need to strengthen students’ reading habits.
The call comes against the backdrop of a national decline in English performance. The national mean in English fell from 72.5 in 2025 to 64.2 this year.
St Gabriel’s Primary secured both the top boy and top girl positions in this year’s examination and placed four students within the top ten nationally.
Class 4 teacher Annabelle Thornton, who taught top girl Xiomara Alexis Lascaris, said she was proud of all the students’ achievements and credited their success to a balanced educational approach that extends beyond the core examination subjects.
“I feel extremely proud of her and all of them,” Thornton said. “They all worked very hard.”
She noted that St Gabriel’s does not focus solely on mathematics and English, but ensures students are exposed to a broad curriculum that includes science, Spanish, scripture, drama and music.
“The children are really well-rounded students,” she said. “We encourage reading, which is something we all have to push now. All schools, I think the reading is really the base of it.”
Improving reading skills should be a priority across the primary school system, Thornton said, noting that it forms the foundation for learning in every subject area.
“It is definitely a big concern, but we do try to push it,” she said, referring to the lower English scores. “We do lots of comprehensions, lots and lots of reading – newspapers, magazines, sports magazines. You really need to push the reading more than all these other things. You have to be able to read; it’s the base to move on from whatever else you have to move on to.”
The school’s long-standing emphasis on project-based learning and extracurricular activities has helped produce confident, articulate and well-rounded students, she added.
“We’ve always been project-based. Every term we have a project,” Thornton said. “We are an all-round, well-balanced school. Our students are well spoken and do a lot of extracurricular activities.”
Another teacher of the school’s top performers, Kirsty Lashley, also praised the students for their achievements and dedication throughout the year.
Teacher Kirsty Lashley. (Photo Credit: Shamar Blunt/Barbados TODAY)
“I’m delighted for the students who we know have done well and anxious for those who have not yet received the results,” Lashley said. “They are very deserving. They’ve worked incredibly hard for the year, so they’re very deserving.”
Reflecting on the school’s success, she added: “I think we’ve been blessed.”
(SB)
