Mae’s Under-12 student Larissa Wiltshire is this year’s top performer at the National Grade Six Assessment after she gained 565 marks out of a possible 592 to pip 18,612 other students.
Wiltshire secured a spot at the country’s premier secondary school, Queen’s College (QC).
Her school was the top performer in the country gaining some 20 spots in the country’s top 100.
Saying that he was “generally satisfied with the results,” Minister of Education Shaik Baksh yesterday revealed that this year there was an increase of almost 1,000 students who wrote the assessment, as compared to last year. These students would also have written the Grade Two and Grade Four assessments in 2005 and 2007 respectively and the results were based on their overall performance at the three assessments.
According to Baksh, “five per cent of each candidate’s Grade Two score in Mathematics and English and ten per cent of the Grade Four scores in the same subjects, were added to 85% of their scores in those subjects. The combined scores of those two subjects were then added to the scores gained in Science and Social Studies.” The minister said the highest possible score to gain in Mathematics was 150; English, 149; Social Studies, 143; and Science, 150.
The cut-off scores for only five schools were listed by the ministry and they are: QC, 542; Bishops’ High, 534; St Stanislaus College, 528; St Roses High, 519; and St Joseph High, 514.
According to the minister, schools are now classified as sixth-form and class A, B, C and D schools and the classification is based on the performance index over a three-year period at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examination.
“So it means from year to year a school can move from one classification to the other depending on their performance at the CSEC examination,” Baksh said.
And instead of having a cut-off score for each school as in previous years, the minister said, there are now cut-off scores for a class of schools in a geographic location.
“That is within the region… all Class A schools will have the same cut-off score in a geographical location so the country is divided into regions and geographical locations… This will help us clearly in avoiding the hardships of children having to travel for long distances. It would minimise those problems so that children can be allocated [schools] nearer to where they are living…” the minister said.
Baksh said some 50 students were awarded non-residential places at President’s College and a further 70 were awarded residential places.
With Mae’s Under-12 the top performing school this year St Margaret’s Primary came in second with 13 students in the top 100 followed by the New Guyana School and North Georgetown Primary with 12 and 11 respectively.
Cumberland Primary School in Berbice performed creditably with six students in the top 100.
