Linden’s special needs school records exemplary NGSA results

Teachers attached to the Unit: From left: Luanna Boyce, Shellon Swaving, and Amin Britton

The Linden Resource Unit for Special Needs Children has recorded exemplary results at this year’s National Grade 6 Examinations (NGSA). Three students attached to the unit – which was formerly known as a Unit for the Blind— have secured places at Mackenzie High School owing to their outstanding performances.
The students are Shallun Walks, who secured 494 marks, MeQuita Sealey with 470, and Ramprakash Totoram who all hail from Wismar Hill Primary School where the unit is located. Walks has been offered a place at one of the country’s most prestigious high schools—President’s College, owing to his performance. The achievements of the students who are considered visually impaired have been welcomed with great satisfaction from both their parents and teachers.
A parent of one of the top performers, Caeron Sealey, said the students would have been excellent performers throughout the years despite the challenges.
Sealey, who is also a teacher, noted that the students possessed a high level of competence to cope and would have achieved 87 per cent or more in the examination. Sealey shared his belief that once the students receive necessary attention they can propel even further in the future. He noted that the experience working with the students for the first time would have been challenging, yet, encouraging at the same time.
“I want to encourage parents, even though they may have a child with a disability. I mean the disability does not really specify the genetic trait as it relates to the intelligence of a child. What the disability does is that it brings challenges but the child would have that genetic trait of intelligence. You just have to find the solutions so as to help the child to cope with the challenges and they can be successful in their examinations,” he noted.
Meanwhile, Teacher in Charge of the Unit Shellon Swaving has expressed gratitude to the Women for Special Needs Children Organisation which she noted has played an integral role in assisting with the monitoring of the vision of the students. The organisation collaborates with Optique Vision to provide quality eye glasses for the students.
“Every August we take the children to Georgetown to see if their vision is getting better and with that, we have a close tab on what is going on. So we don’t have children wearing the same glasses for a long time for their eyes to get worse and that kind of thing,” Swaving related.
“I call up at the schools and once the schools pinpoint the students, we do a list and they would pay for the bus to take us down (to Georgetown). Sometimes we make three trips during the August holiday with different sets of children, sometimes they have to go back for a follow-up,” Swaving explained.
Swaving said over the past few years, the majority of students from the unit would have performed well in the examinations but pointed out that one on one teaching would propel the students even further. Presently, there are four teachers and two volunteer teachers at the unit. Apart from Swaving, the other teachers include Luanna Boyce, Jenella Williams, Tiffanique Fiedtkou, Teshawn Rodney and Amin Britton. Two of the teachers are also visually impaired.
Swaving has also extended gratitude to the Education Ministry for providing the students with large print for the examination, Regional Education Officer Rabindra Singh and National Centre of Educational Resources Development (NCERD) for special needs intervention amongst others. The unit, which has operated out of the Wismar Hill Primary school for a number of years, was recently rebranded to cater not only to visually impaired children but autistic children and those with Down syndrome amongst others.