HISTORY OF THE BARBADOS SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST SECONDARY SCHOOL

 

The Barbados Seventh day Adventist secondary school was opened on September 21, 1953. This was the culmination of a renewed effort to make Adventist Christian education available to the increasing number of secondary school-age youth in the churches across Barbados.

 

The school operated in rented quarters, on the grounds of “Flodden” on Culloden Road, St. Michael, just a couple miles east of Bridgetown. The buildings were long enough to accommodate two hundred and forty students comfortably with some modifications, and surrounded by five and a half acres of land that allowed for adequate student recreation.

 

The first principal of the school was Benjamin G. O. French, a talented St. Lucian educator and former inspector of schools in his homeland.

 

Student enrollment during the first school year averaged around one hundred and fifty. During the second year, the student enrollment climbed to two hundred and thirty as confidence in the school’s program grew among Barbadian Adventists.

 

The classes in the upper level prepared students to eventually take the government-approved General Certificate of Education examinations. From the onset the school’s administration worked closely with the Ministry of Education in coordinating the school’s curricula and other related matters as outlined by the government for secondary schools operating in Barbados A cadre of well- trained Adventist teachers was selected to help lay the foundation and set the plans and objectives for this secondary school. Mrs. Lucy Kum, formerly of the business department at Caribbean Training College, Trinidad, led out in the early planning and was responsible for selecting the school’s uniform. Other teachers involved in the early plans were Rudolph T. Allen and Ishbel Bayne, a former mathematics teacher at the Alexandra school in Speightstown, St. Peter.

 

Beginning in 1956, selected students took the School Leaving external examinations for the government- recognized General Certificate of Education. The most successful students acquired passes on an average of five to eight subjects. The overall student performance was usually modest. However, occasionally there were some outstanding successes. The school’s principals and church leaders frequently stressed that the results of external tests were not the sole criterion for the school’s success, but rather that the primary objective of the school was preparing students to be useful and competent citizens with a clear understanding of their Christian obligations.

 

The principals of the Barbados Secondary School, from its inception to the time of Barbados’ independence, were Benjamin G. 0. French, 1953-1959, Lionel L. Lawrence, 1959- 1963; and John R. Hill, 1963-1966.