PEP Achiever Says He Had to Do Well for His Grandmother

Morant Bay High School, located in the cool hills of Highbury, St. Thomas, will welcome many new faces when the 2022/23 academic year begins in September, and one of those will be 12-year-old Alex Talbot.

This year’s ‘Top Boy’ in the Primary Exit Profile (PEP) examinations at Morant Bay Primary School, young Alex has defeated the odds, rising from once being a slow learner who repeated a grade, to now achieving enviable academic success.

He tells JIS News that the motivation driving him to his outstanding accomplishment is his grandmother, who has raised the youngster since the age of two.

“She believed in me and believed that I could do it, and she helped me; so, I had to do well for my grandmother,” Alex says.

The maternal figure of whom he speaks is Ava Ramsey, a grade two teacher at the same primary school he attended.

She explains that her grandson “started out slowly”, but she encouraged him, just the same.

By the time he got to grade six, it was clear to her that Alex was not ready to take on the final leg of PEP.

“He was not performing in my eyes. When he did the online test that the Ministry [of Education and Youth] sent out, and I said ‘how much do you think you got?’, he said 100 per cent and when the teacher marked it, it was way down at the 60s and some of them in the 50s,” Ms. Ramsey notes.

He was just 10 years old at the time, so she requested that Alex be brought back to grade five where he could “sharpen his skills” and increase his readiness for grade six.

Looking back, Ms. Ramsey says she is happy that she made that call, while declaring “I think he’s ready, now, for high school.”

“Even while I was helping him prepare for the mental ability section [of PEP], he was able to find the answers for some questions when I couldn’t. So I saw that he was really poised for greatness,” she adds.

Ms. Ramsey describes her grandson as a kind, respectful and caring child.

“He has a passion for people who are less fortunate; he wants to get rich just to help people who are less fortunate,” she adds.

Career-wise, Alex aspires to be an engineer, and currently enjoys Mathematics and Science.

He says living with his grandmother is “a dream”, adding that the repeated year was not the only thing that sharpened his abilities.

“She helped me in the evenings after school and her cooking is wonderful,” he shares, with a smile.

When he learned of his PEP results and, later, that he was the top boy, Alex was ecstatic, as his hard work had paid off and he was placed at his first-choice school.

Over the years, some students in St. Thomas have opted to travel to Kingston for high school, but Alex says he chose Morant Bay High School as, “it is a school for high achievers, and it is close to my home.”

Some of these achievers who attended the institution are Olympian, Hansle Parchment; Journalist, Dionne Jackson-Miller, and State Minister in the Ministry of Health and Wellness, Hon. Juliet Cuthbert Flynn.

To ensure that his name is added to this list of greats, Alex says that when he gets to the school, he plans to “do a lot of studying, work hard and listen to my grandmother.”

For Ms. Ramsey, Alex’s bright smile will no longer light up the Morant Bay Primary School compound, but she is excited to continue supporting the youngster.

“I won’t miss him, but I will worry for him. I just hope that he will not be influenced negatively,” she tells JIS News.

The two are Adventists and say they are a “praying family” who owe much of their joy to the Lord and have thanked God for Alex’s achievements.