Preparing for the PSE

I (Adie) was recently able to spend a few days in a classroom of the Armenia Government School. The school system here is a bit different from the US in that the students attend Primary School for eight years and then (if they qualify and if their parents can afford to send them) they go on to four years of high school.


When I heard that the Standard 6 (equivalent to 8th grade in the US) was about to take their Primary School Exam (PSE), I thought that maybe I could help. The students have to pass this exam in order to be eligible for continuing on to high school. Of the 24 students in the Standard 6 class in Armenia, probably only a small handful of them will continue on to high school next year. The reasons are varied: some will not pass the exam, thus not qualify; some are simply not interested in continuing their education; some have parents that can’t afford to send them into Belmopan (the capital) for high school; and others will have to work rather than study in order to help support their families.


So, in an attempt to help, I offered to go into the Standard 6 class one afternoon to teach the students some test-taking strategies. I was welcomed with open arms! Most of the teachers are desperate for any help they can get – especially with writing. I had a blast working with the class on test anxiety, general test-taking strategies and multiple choice strategies. It was so well-received that the teacher (Ms. Rivas) asked me to come back again.
I did, and we worked on some review of math concepts and a short writer’s workshop. Writing (and especially timed writing) is a real challenge for most of the kids. Not only is Spanish, Mayan, or Ketchi their first language, but much of the spoken English is Creole which doesn’t do much to help their grammar and spelling!

This week I checked in with a few of the students. They had taken the first day of their PSE on Monday. The feedback that I got was that the Science was kind of hard (multiple choice) but they felt okay about the writing. Yes!! If I wasn’t able to do much about their skills in that short of a time, I hope I at least improved their confidence so that they could get something written on the paper. Gosh,, could God be using my time working at Sylvan to help serve children here in Belize?!

There is another thing that we are looking at to help more kids from Armenia have the opportunity to go on to high school. We have begun talking with a local Peace Corps Volunteer (living in Armenia) about working with him to establish a scholarship program. We will be meeting with him again next week to continue that discussion.

As another little point of interest, there is currently a big uproar here about teachers being unqualified. Apparently at a recent workshop, the PSE test was given to a group of Belizean teachers, and they performed very poorly on it. It seems that teachers here often have only a HS diploma and absolutely no teacher training. We also hear (and it’s easy to believe) that the better teachers are not coming to the small villages like Armenia.

We would appreciate your prayers:

• that God would show us how Jaguar Creek can help with the education of His children in Belize


• that God would inspire and equip the teachers who are trying to teach in difficult circumstances


• that God would protect and reach out to the children at Armenia Government School