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POINT Fortin primary school students were ready to finally get the SEA exam out of the way on Thursday morning, but many of their parents said the children found online learning challenging.
Owing to covid19, parents had to quickly drop off their children and not linger around.
Antonia Cornwall, 12, of the Guapo Government Primary School arrived after 7 am and hugged her mother Maria Sanchez before entering the compound.
Sanchez said her daughter had been saying for weeks that she was ready.
“But last night she broke down,” she said. “She couldn’t sleep.
“She sleeps in her own bed, but last night she said ‘Mummy, I could come and lie down with you?’ I said come. But when she got up this morning, she got up with a difference and I said, ‘I hope you go inside there today with this joy I’m seeing on your face.’”
She said the teacher, Miss Fabian, “went all out” for the students, but at times online learning was a bit tough.
“Sometimes she would say, ‘Mummy I feeling so sick,’ like she want to throw up after spending so much time behind a screen.”
Sanchez said she prayed with Antonia before they went to the school.
Just before 8 am, a number of students began arriving at the Point Fortin ASJA Primary School.
The students had their temperature checked with a thermal scanner and had to wash their hands before entering the building.
Kathy Ali dropped off her son Micah Ali and gave him some final comforting words before he exited the car.
She too said online learning was challenging for her son.
“Having to focus on a screen to do your work – not having a teacher right in front of him was also a challenge. He would get bored easily…”
She said he was a bit nervous still but she knew he would do his best.
“Whatever he does, I know I will be satisfied.”
A guardian of 13-year-old ASJA student Ronaldo Lopez, who preferred not to be named, said the student had been crying a lot and he hopes all goes well.
At the Point Fortin AC and RC schools, it seemed all students were already in by 8 am.
But at the Point Fortin Seventh Day Adventist Primary School, scores of children were just arriving after 8 am.
[caption id="attachment_898306" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Parents outside the Point Fortin Seventh Day Primary School after dropping off their children to sit the SEA exam. Photo by Ayanna Kinsale -[/caption]
One father, Anthony Hernandez, prayed with his 13-year-old daughter Antonya across the road from the school before sending her off. She was tearing up and he wiped her tears.
He told Newsday that Antonya was “a little nervous” but the prayer helped her.
“I did the fatherly thing which was to come and make sure everything was (as it should be).
He said she prefers face-to-face learning as opposed to online learning.
“I prayed for her to come out and do something positive, something good, for her to be able to concentrate and do her best.”
Standard 5 teacher Claire Aguillera was outside the gate ensuring the student-arrival process went smoothly.
She told Newsday she was already proud of all of her students, adding that a lot of them grew since she last saw them in person.
Lenardo Renalis’s sister Aaliyah, who walked him to the front gate, said: “Remember what I told you,” and he nodded.
She told Newsday, “(At home) I told him make sure he looks over the paper carefully, look at the easier questions, the questions that worth more marks…”
She said she knows he will do his best.
 
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