Sion Hill Gov’t School holds graduation ceremony

It was celebration time last Tuesday, June 15, as the Sion Hill Government School held its graduation ceremony.

And there was indeed a lot to celebrate as the graduating class of 2010 did the school proud recording an overall pass rate of 57.69 percent in the 2010 Common Entrance Examination.{{more}}

This represents a 15 percent increase over last year’s pass rate.

According to Headteacher, Verona Richards, this was a remarkable achievement based on the challenges the teaching staff has had to deal with during the school year, including poor reading skills and limited teaching resources.

Richards added that there have been some changes made and the school has been seeing positive results.

“There is still some disparity in the reading levels,” Richards acknowledged.

Feature speaker and former teacher of the Sion Hill Government School, Shirley Lewis, shared some advice with the graduating class.

“None of us are responsible for how we came into the world, but we are responsible for how we leave.”

In other words, she said, if an individual is born into poverty, there is not much that one can do, but if one remains in that state, then the individual should be the one to blame.

“Education is the surest way to edge ourselves out of poverty,” Lewis contended.

“You have to be smart and wise to know who to associate with,” she continued.

“Don’t get connected with someone because of what they can offer you and be careful who you choose as your role model,” the former teacher advised.

Twenty-six students graduated from the Sion Hill Government School.

Zakiyah Mofford made a clean sweep of the individual subject categories taking the ‘Most outstanding student’ award for Mathematics, English and General Paper; Nataniel Carrington was awarded the ‘Most Improved Student’; Kifair Boucher took the ‘Best overall male performer in the Common Entrance Exam award with Dezico Francois as the Valedictorian of the graduating class of 2010.