Saturday 3rd May 2014.
Class 6 with form tutor –
Deputy Head, Chris Kawa.
Affectionately known as ‘Prof’.
The venue was Centenary Junior Secondary School in Bo Town, our 39 pupils assembled with 5 members of staff, Chris Kawa Head of Year 6, Max Kessebeh, Eric Koba, Mike Baio and Francis Rogers They arrived at 7.30 for an 8am start, along with pupils from 19 other Primary schools.
Schools were allocated their rooms with about 4/5 occupying the hall. OAKS was fortunate in having a dedicated classroom, this helped calm the nerves. The exam papers printed in Freetown were held at a local bank overnight and delivered with a police escort!
A long day of 6 consecutive exams:
01 – Quantitative Aptitude – 40 questions – 45minutes.
Indoor break – 5 minutes.
02 – Verbal Aptitude – 40 questions – 30 minutes.
Outside beak – 10 minutes.
03 – Maths – 50 questions – 1 hour.
Lunch 30 minutes. Pupils had to take their own food and they shared with those in their group who had been sent with nothing. There was a small facility to buy food from vendors on site, if you had money.
04 – English 01 – 40 questions – 40 minutes.
Indoor break – 5 minutes
05 – English 02 – Composition and Letter Writing – 1 hour.
Indoor break – 5 minutes.
06 – General Paper – 50 questions – 1 hour.
The proceedings were supposed to conclude at 4pm. However, due to delays in the delivery of papers, their exams finally finished at 4.45pm.
Wow. Primary school children on site for 9 ¼ hours!!!! Plus travelling time.
Results in August. Fingers crossed for our 5th 100% pass rate.
Papers marked out of 500. Pass required by Government 230. Required by OAKS 250.
The pupils were all pleased with their efforts and thought the exams were not as ferocious as they had expected. The reward – a week off school.
Back in school for de-brief. There was a review of all of their test papers with each subject teacher.
Laurel – introducing a ‘taster’ lesson of French.
END OF PRIMARY SCHOOL. The remainder of this term, May, June & July is now – Pre-Junior Secondary. The teaching of core subjects continues with taster lessons in Mende (local tribal language), Practical Performing Arts and French plus lots of sport.
