An 11-year-old Barbadian student has secured the top ranking at her private primary campus in this year’s nation-wide secondary school entrance assessment, turning years of focused effort and small personal sacrifices into an acceptance to her first-choice institution. Kierna Edwards, a graduate of Warrens Primary School, will move on to St Michael School in the upcoming academic term, a goal she worked tirelessly to achieve through months of structured preparation.
In an interview with Barbados TODAY, Kierna opened up about the challenges of balancing exam prep with her daily life, noting that while the process brought occasional stress, her commitment never wavered. “It was a little stressing, but I still got through it,” she reflected.
To shore up her weaker subject areas, Kierna worked one-on-one with private tutor Marion Husbands, who targeted reading comprehension — a skill Kierna initially struggled with — and provided targeted support for mathematics, where she was already showing steady improvement. Beyond extra academics, the young student made the deliberate choice to step back from two of her most beloved extracurricular groups: karate club and K-Kids service club. While the separation left her disappointed at the time, she said the trade-off was always clear. “It made me feel a little sad because it was taking me away from what I enjoyed, but I knew it was worth the studying because at the end of the day, I wanted to get to the school of my choice,” she explained.
That hard-won goal became official earlier this month, when Kierna completed her enrollment registration at St Michael School on Friday. Though she is eager to start the next chapter of her education, the young achiever said saying goodbye to Warrens Primary will be an emotional adjustment. “It makes me feel a little sad because I had a lot of memories from that school and I’ll miss a lot of people, but I still have to accept that I am going on to a different level, and plus I can still visit them,” she said. Looking ahead to her first term at St Michael, Kierna already has plans to rejoin her old activities and pick up new ones, including cheerleading.
Her father, Raj Edwards, shared that prioritizing Kierna’s academic growth has always been a core family commitment, crediting the personalized one-on-one tutoring with helping her refine gaps in her knowledge and build confidence. “I actually got her enrolled in private lessons… just to address the areas she was having issues in… in both math and English,” he said. Raj went on to praise Husbands for her outsized positive influence on Kierna’s progress, adding that he never doubted his daughter’s ability to reach her target. “I expected it, to be honest… she did a bit better than I expected, but I always had full belief in her,” he noted.
Recalling the process of selecting school preferences, Raj said Kierna never wavered in her choice of St Michael School, and he encouraged her to commit fully to that goal. “When I asked her where she wanted to go, she said St Michael’s School. I said, ‘I will not put anything else on the paper because that’s where you’re going. Put all your energy, all your thoughts, everything into going there, and it’s gonna manifest for you,’” he recalled.
Raj now is using his daughter’s success to encourage other parents to take an active, invested role in their children’s education. “Honestly, just invest in your children. It’s time consuming, it’ll cost money, but invest in them. There’s only one chance they have to get set on the path. Spend time, put in the work. And if it’s difficult for you to put in the work, then take them to lessons… but the work has to get put in,” he advised.
To celebrate Kierna’s standout achievement, the family is planning a series of low-key local celebrations: a domestic staycation, a trip to the cinema, an outing to a beach house, and a collection of gifts to reward her hard work. Echoing his long-held confidence in his daughter, Raj added, “I told her I believe in you fully… Anything she wants, she’s gonna get.”