Principal confident in the success of her students

Dianne Williams has been Principal at West St George Secondary for half the life of the school. She is keen to see the continued growth of the institution in all aspects of its operations and is confident of achieving growing levels of success. This year, WSGSS returned a 63.67 per cent pass rate in the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations, and continues to do well in sports and the Arts- Theatre Arts,Visual Arts, and Culinary Arts. The school’s Culinary Arts programme is receiving a boost with the construction of its very own food lab, thanks to an organisation in Taiwan which was due to begin work this week. When the lab is completed, the school will be able to enter more than the approximately 18 students each year for the CSEC exams, increasing their opportunities to make a living in this area.

On six occasions, WSGSS has been listed among the top 10 schools for CSEC performance, and was 7th in 2020. That year, it had a pass rate of 85 per cent. There remains however, a nagging problem of literacy and numeracy- though not at the level as in earlier years.

“…so we have increased the number of sessions with literacy and numeracy, so they can get the basic skills,” Principal Williams explains.

The strategy being applied to address this problem is that some English basics (reading,spelling), is taught across every subject area; and teachers are engaged in a lot of professional development to assist them in its application. Recently, Literacy has been added to the taught areas, and students in forms 4 and 5 are receiving extra help with math. A male volunteer works with the students in form 4, while the math teacher does extra lessons outside of the regular hours with those in form 5. Williams is anticipating growing improvements as a result, given that in some years the school has done poorly in math at CSEC. When she spoke at the opening in 2004, the then principal stated that the school will be focussing not only on academics, but on sports as well; and the current principal has highlighted some of the stand out areas of achievement of both male and female students in secondary school sports.

They are the current male and female champions in table tennis; third in netball; they have made the quarter finals in football on several occasions; do very well in volley ball; and do fairly well in track and field, especially with field events. Plans are well advanced to publicly recognise sporting excellence among the student body; and on the school’s Facebook

page. There also are plans to incentivize punctuality, which is an area of concern. The Principal has no doubt of the significance in marking the school’s 20th anniversary.

“ Its very important for us to have it out there because we find sometimes the negative things about the school is what you hear… ,” she explains.

“We are trying to change the image of the school, and I want people to celebrate it, put out there what we are doing- all the positives.”

Past students are returning to the school to speak to current students about what is means to them to have attended WSGSS, and the community provides good support for fund raising events and in other areas of need. Some individuals pay for lunches for students; some help to purchase books. Tus-T Water provides breakfast, and the Mustique Charitable Trust provides lunches for which the school is grateful.

From a starting population of 105, the WSGSS currently has a student body of 400, 81 of whom began school during this term, while 10 transferred from other schools entering at form 3 or form 4.

The main student catchment are the communities of Gomea, Belair, Fair Hall and Sion Hill. Ten years ago, when she was informed of her transfer as Deputy Principal at the Thomas Saunders Secondary School to be Deputy Principal of the West St George Secondary School, Williams was not the happiest trooper.

“… but when I got there it just seemed like it was the will of God. I fell in love with the children, and I built up a desire to see then succeed…I felt more needed there- I think I have put in most of my work that I have done in my teaching career at West St George Secondary,” said Principal Williams, who has a BSc in Geography and English, and a MSc in Counselling.

“ I felt more needed there than anywhere else that I worked.”

There is always on-going work as with all schools which have a batch of new students entering every year, but Williams is confident that her 35 member teaching staff, is adequate to the demands. Personally, her ambition is to see every student leave the WSGSS with the required number of subjects that would guarantee their entry into the Division of Technical Education, or the Division of Arts at the St Vincent and the Grenadines Community College helping them to get on a firm footing to contribute to their personal development and that of the nation.