Christopher Sinckler, the youngest politician to become Finance Minister and to deliver the Budget Speech is a proud Garrisonian. – Sandra Cadogan, retired educator.
The Garrison Secondary School recently held its annual speech day and prize-giving ceremony at its Paddock Road location. The theme for the 2010 event was Forging Ahead: The Flight Continues. This was a follow-on from last year’s theme which was A School In Flight.
The motto of the school is Promote All Aspects Of Our Growth. Thirty-five years ago this school was literally “dropped” in the historic Garrison area right next to the Paddock where many horses are stabled. To the west of the co-educational institution with a current role of 928, is the Barbados Museum and the headquarters of the Carribean Examination Council.
The G-shaped campus nestles among densely populated residential districts, and the school shares the space called the Garrison Historic Area in which there are many buildings that date back to a period in our history when an important military base was located in the general area.
Today, the school continues, like Barbados, to punch above its size and reputation as a “newer secondary” school. In his report on the year under review, the principal spoke of the school’s continued success and threw out a challenge to other secondary schools.
He boldly asserted: “The Garrison Secondary School is poised to emerge as the next educational frontier in Barbados at the secondary level.”
The principal provided statistics that indicate that a number of students leave the Paddock Road institution with as many as ten passes at CSEC level. According to the principal, many students leaving the school are doing so better qualified than many who attend the “so-called” prestigious secondary schools which many believe are underachieving.
He said that Garrisonians were leaving more qualified and had a more rigorous and all-round educational experience that their erstwhile grammar school counterparts.
In providing supportive evidence of the school’s success as it forges ahead, the principal noted that students who went to the Barbados Community College from newer secondary schools, like the Garrison, had a better attitude to study and many did better at the University of West Indies. Among them was Damien Maynard, a proud Garrisonian, who was both Mr Garrison and Mr Barbados Secondary School Pageant King and who graduated in October with a Bachelor of Science degree with first class honours.
But it was not just the principal who was blowing the trumpet of the “school in flight”. Mrs Sandra Cadogan, who delivered the keynote address and who recently retired after 42 years in the profession, also picked up the refrain which she sang even better that the principal.
The former head of the Department of English who spent 32 years at the Paddock Road institution went into the school’s archives and celebrated its achievements going back in time. The school’s first principal Mr Graydon Sealy would have done pioneering work to produce a number of proud Garrisonians who are making their mark locally, regionally and internationally, and are doing so in virtually every field of endeavour.
Lionel Eli, a professional tennis player who is currently coaching in the United States. Victor Huston who went to the Olympics as a heptathlon athlete and who is currently coaching in the North America.
Mrs Cadogan shouted the achievements of Scholarship winner Natalie Hunte who is currently pursuing a Master’s in business. Damon Thompson, Tanya Lopez, Kirk Cummins all of whom represented Barbados at the Carifta Games. Squash player Andrea Goddard, West Indies cricketers Dwayne Smith and Tino Best were not to be left out of Mrs Cadogan’s report.
But it would be a distortion of our heritage and reputation of excellence to give the impression that the Garrison is nothing more than a sports academy, for we are much more than that. Entertainers Tony Norville, Kareen Clarke, Quinn Belgrave, Li’l Ric, Alison Hinds, Classic, Structure honed their early career skills at the Garrison Secondary School.
Dramatist and rhythm poet Winston Farrell and Edwin Armstrong, who studied on a visual arts scholarship in Ghana, all attest to the hardwork and dedication of the school’s competent leadership and staff.
As Mrs Cadogan put it, “if you have the imagination . . . there are a host of Garrisonians looking down from the gallery of success urging the current student body to believe in their ability to soar like the eagles who have taken their flight of success from the school over the years”.
Among them are attorneys-at-law Junior Allsopp, Michael Lashley (also Minister of Housing and Lands), Vincent Watson, Magistrate Ian Weekes, Magistrate Douglas Frederick and an array of entrepreneurs and businessmen and women like Evadne Brewster and Dale Lashley who are integral to the business and commercial sector in Barbados. So that when Honourable Christopher Sinckler was elevated to the position of Minister of Finance, this represented a giant leap in the school’s overall success.
The “old boy and old school tie networks” of Combermere and Harrison College are probably in for their greatest threat as the Paddock Road institution is poised to become the next educational frontier at the second level in Barbados.
As principal, my staff and I stand ready, willing and able as the school forges ahead and soars to even greater heights as the flight continues.
•Matthew D. Farley is a secondary school principal, chairman of the National Forum On Education, and a social commentator.
