Are We Witnessing the Demise of Combermere Secondary School?
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138 responses to “Are We Witnessing the Demise of Combermere Secondary School?”
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Lives were once made there
Hearts now gone to sleep there
Not much good happening there
Up and gone, Up and gone
We running from the fight
Looking for anywhere else with all our might
Plucked wings for someone’s dinner tonight
Up and gone, Up and gone.The new Combermere School song (c) Ministry of Education (2016).
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It’s important to maintain a sense of competition among students. Students must put forward their best effort, competing with themselves to achieve. I had Combermere marks on the 11+ before I left Barbados.
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It appears the Combermere Old Scholars will not be taking the BS from the ministry et al.
COMBERMERE SCHOOL OLD SCHOLARS ASSOCIATION
My dear and Fellow Combermerians as we continue to grow and demonstrate the Combermerian spirit.
Combermerians, the time has come for us to reunite and put our heads together to firstly ascertain the real problem at our beloved University of Waterford as well as find and implement the solution.
You are therefore hereby invited to attend our first Town Hall meeting in conjunction with the School’ PTA Meeting on Saturday 19 Nov 2016 at 4:30pm. Please be seated by 415pm. The meeting will be held in the School Hall of HARRISON COLLEGE.
The proposed agenda for the meeting will be:
- Remarks from President of the PTA
- Remarks from President of the CSOSA
- Remarks from the Principal of Combermere School
- Current State of Environmental Affairs at Combermere School
- Plan of Action and Possible solution for the school
- Any other Business
Finally, in concluding should you have questions, queries or suggestions please send all correspondence to CSOSA-EXEC@COMBERMERESCHOOL.COM
Up and On!
Regards and God Bless
Donovan Smith
CSOSA President (Ag)
CSOSA Public Relations Officer [2016-2017]
Email: CSOSA-PRO@combermereschool.com
Email: CSOSA-EXEC@combermereschool.com
Email: CSOSA-PRES@combermereschool.com
http://www.CombermereSchool.comthe official website of the Association and the Schoolfacebook Presencethe official facebook account of the Association and the School
Join Combermere School, Barbados on LinkedInJoin The Combermere Alumni USA Inc. on LinkedIn
Register (Get on the Mailing List)the only way to get on the official mailing list & to enjoy all the advantages of the website -
I think the Minister of Education should resign asap. He along with the other members of his team have no vision and are leading this country down a path of destruction. He is an incompetent Minister of Education.
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David surely you jest! The Minster proposes to close Combermere just so. An institution that proudly celebrated 300 years just the ‘udder’ day and has so many proud traditions along with its brother/sister schools like HC, Lodge, St. Michaels et al.
No disrespect to Louis Lynch students but I am discombobulated that such a comparison could be made considering the legacy of that school called Combermere.
Amusing or shocking depending on where one went to school that such an action -redistribution of one of oldest secondary school on our little island – would be considered in our 50 year as a nation.
But alas life moves on and newer schools are there one presumes.
So maybe it’s amazingly shocking!
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@Dee Word
What if this incompetent lot is not able to fix the problem?
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Actually David, excuse my ignorance here but I presume this is all related to the ‘sick’ building issues that were discovered at the school. If yes then as you said a fix could be beyond the incompetents or those like Grenville who is quite competent.
I imagine that the Minister was doing a Chad45 and being provocative as I cannot for one minute believe that old Harrisonians or Lodge boys would allow the dissolution of their alma mater and thus it’s incomprehensible that Cawmerians would.
They tell me that the school used to be at the Garrison, in Roebuck St. and then to Waterford so maybe there is another location in its life-line.
Years ago this minister would have been hoisted in Parliament or wherever by his lapels and given a rousing verbal lashing by the Waterford mafia men then in de House. LOL.
Oh lawd, how tings have changed in lil Bim!
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It is about time – slave school/s
All schools should have a number, no names period.
All teachers should be electronically assigned, based on location, other factors
All students similarly assigned.
All schools given the same or equitable resources.
All school Mafias should be banned and heavy jail sentences imposed for minor infractions
All school ‘ties’ to be disbanded. LOL
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@Dee Word
How quickly we have forgotten when Rev Charles Morris spoke on this issue early in the year and was hauled over the coals by the ministry of education.
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“Anne November 16, 2016 at 6:15 PM #
I think the Minister of Education should resign asap. He along with the other members of his team have no vision and are leading this country down a path of destruction. He is an incompetent Minister of Education.”
Maybe but he is on the right track. Time to begin the process of disabusing ourselves of the backward notion that some schools are more equal than others. We all know that the successful examination results of the once mighty flagships of snobbery Harrison college and Queens college are not a direct result of institutional tutorship but are aided by extra lessons outside of normal school hours.
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All a part of our 50th Anniversary celebration of Excellence, I trust. Maybe this is a big foot move by the esteemed minister and his cohorts into enticing Ms Fenty to gift a new Combermere to the island. Pack of blood suckers.
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@Pachamama November 16, 2016 at 7:09 PM “It is about time – slave school/s…
All schools should have a number, no names period…All teachers should be electronically assigned, based on location, other factors…All students similarly assigned.”Pacha/Stalin.
lol
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Seriously though.
If there is a smell at the school…and I believe the teachers and students that there is a smell, then the smell must be caused by something organic or something chemical. With all of Combermere’s great alumni there must be some scientists who can determine exactly what is causing the smell, and who can figure out how to make the smell go away.
If the problem is so bad that there is no short term solution to making the smell go away…then a new school should be build somewhere else.
And I am not even a Combermerian.
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@David November 16, 2016 at 7:13 PM “How quickly we have forgotten when Rev Charles Morris spoke on this issue early in the year…”
We have not forgotten.
I believed Charles.
I’ve know the Morris’ for generations. Honest, upright, hard working people.
I had no reason to disbelieve him.
But of course a new school will cost money.
And we the taxpayers will have to pay for it.
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FearPlay November 16, 2016 at 7:44 PM #
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If you go back a bit, you will find in one of the blogs pertaining to Ms Fenty, that she was described as a “Khaki Soldier” or something like that , by the old guard , as she did not never progress to the more senior uniform. -
Having drove along the South Coast earlier tonight, I wonder if the workers, residents and hotel guests along that stretch of the tourist belt, are going to follow Combermere’s lead and asked for that section from Worthing Police Station to Bert’s Bar , be closed, until such a time that the cause of the foul odour which is blanketing the community is rectified.
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Combermere has been a pillar in education for centuries alas the sun has set on its past glory. Alternative schools have eclipsed Combermere particularly in academic competence. A vertically challenged shifty ass snickered the schools that count are HC, Lodge and Combermere. The midget not known to read past the comic strips is likely to miss this post. The national heroes are not graduates of Combermere. The sole living one Sir Garfield Sobers isn’t.
Combermere gave us Rihanna whose terse comment on her alma mater is she was bullied there because of her complexion. Not a ringing endorsement of the University of Waterford. Few leaders of modern Barbados are Cawmerians . The spheres of politics, private sector, business and finance, trade unions, sport, even the church boast leaders from secondary institutions not named Combermere.
Disbanding the school to scatter the population to other institutions ought not to be the solution to environmental problems. The Combermere myth is done the alumni and students have to get over themselves. Their gloating is hollow. The country has moved on.
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I thought the environmental issues at Combermere had been resolved, wasn’t there a picture of the offender ( A Tree) in the newspapers?
Is there anyone capable of diagnosing what is wrong with the building? Is there anyone capable of taking remedial action ( and I don’t mean a few spritzers of Jeyes Fluid in corners) to clear offensive smells. I think the first start would be to take soil and air samples from different locations, investigate what building materials were used, if these materials are now causing the smell after this many years or are the materials interacting with one another to produce offensive smells, Is the building constructed on a former swamp? How widespread is the smell, are the nearby residents affected or is it confined to the school building? Was there new construction in the last few years?
So many questions one would have thought that the over qualified Bush Tea would have had a handle on this matter and provided his solution a long time ago so that the U of W would continue to flourish.
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I do not expect to see lessons being conducted at Combermere, on weekends or any other time, during the period that it is closed for school operations.
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Simple Simon
All PS in the USA have a number. They most times have names also.
Children are generally accepted at the schools in the district in which they live. But not mandatory
We are surprised that in an age of Stalin in the USA, you would so consider us. LOL
The real Joseph Stalin is, in effect, at 1600 Penn.
You are so committed to the class formations, through education, in Barbados, you can’t see another world.
A world based on the destruction of a post-slavery system.
A system giving you social meanings.
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The spirit of this outstanding institution must be preserved at all costs. If our environmental officers and scientists cannot discover the cause of this smell, if there is one and not just a case of mass psychology, then call in experts from Canada, the US or the UK. This is not beyond the wit of man (even of Ronald Jones).
I suspect the real problem runs deeper and it is a culture of cooperation and brother and sisterhood that people dislike.
What is more urgent is to improve the class room teaching, not the intolerance of teachers who may be frustrated in their careers.
You will always get the buffoons who will intervene with what passes as intelligent contributions which, when analysed, prove to be silly.
Up and on. -
I think it is time to call in the archaeologists- might very well discover that the Lord Combermere school site was a cholera burial ground
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When was the last time that cholera was in Barbados? And would those bodies still smell?
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Perhaps it is time for Combermere to close.
It certainly would be in keeping with the general trend that we are seeing otherwise.
Satan has stamped his authority on his world…
…The world awaits Trump…
…The DLP is building a monument to their boss on the Garrison…
…Clowns have taken over the Parliaments of the world..
…The sugar industry is dead
…Running water is a luxury
…Sewerage is running in the streets
…Garbage pickup and disposal is a bridge too far..
…The economy is shambles
…We are hopelessly in debt
…the roads are mostly pot holes
…BU is awash with shiite talk – mostly unrelated to the REAL challenges that we face..Why the hell would we need Combermere now?
Combermere was needed for a SPECIAL purpose, (concentrated circa the 1960’s) ..which it has fulfilled admirably ….and with an almost spiritual effectiveness.
Anything since that has been icing…RIP
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Bush Tea
Thanks for being one of the ‘buffoons’ as suggested by the biggest buffoon BU has had.
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Maybe the Ancestors have deemed this place a centre of wickedness and have responded appropriately.
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Now we hear that the union had to reject the position by government to ask support staff to report to work.
#JA
>
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@ Commentator aka waiting November 16, 2016 at 10:16 PM
“Combermere gave us Rihanna whose terse comment on her alma mater is she was bullied there because of her complexion. Not a ringing endorsement of the University of Waterford. Few leaders of modern Barbados are Cawmerians . The spheres of politics, private sector, business and finance, trade unions, sport, even the church boast leaders from secondary institutions not named Combermere.”Remind the BU household again who was the last “great” Cawmerian to lead Bim.
Maybe there is an eerie parallel between what is happening to the DLP and Cawmere today. Maybe the death of a lying crook has brought a pox on both of these former hallowed institutions.At what point in time did both institutions start to show evidence of obvious intellectual rot and moral decay?
The ethos that once prevailed at Cawmere represented the spirit of Bim. The ordinary man or woman once committed to the moral ideals of “Religione, Humanitate, Industria” had more than an even chance to succeed (in spite of whatever challenges or setbacks) in any endeavour of their choosing in any sphere or activity in any part of the world.
Maybe the ghost of David the Terrible (D T the king of political blood sport) is locked in mortal battle with the souls of those cholera victims that charles skeete aka balance referred to. Maybe what is playing out on the shitty streets on the South coast is the overflowing blood and gore from that ongoing battle and which will soon claim its modern-day share of sacrifices to the cholera equivalent of Flanders Fields.
Let the authorities continue to play Russian roulette with the health of the nation. Let them put at risk through poor public sanitation measures and environmental irresponsibility their only asset (the young people) and last remaining economic engine (tourism). There is only one chamber left to rotate.
“Hard ears you will not hear, hard ears you will feel!”
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@Bush Tea at 7:25 AM….”Perhaps it is time for Combermere to close.” Fah trute!. Surely since you graduated (?) when “Combermere was needed for a SPECIAL purpose, (concentrated circa the 1960’s) ..” the icing has never been as good as the cake in your view.
After all that place produced the ‘crookedist’ leader of lil Barbados in our 50 years of independence and a memory like that should be blotted from memory. Yes!!!!
And all the good Combermerians and its legacy in Barbados’ hockey, cricket, music et al are all meaningless and surpassed by other awesome institutions anyhow.
Is it that you on the way out so no call for rebirth to develop and foster a new purpose; RIP indeed. I would insert – steeeupse – at this point to close the rant…
…But it’s clear to me that your post was more in abject frustration than a call for a funeral.
‘ Cause most cawmerians I know – even the khaki generals or those who were superannuated – still have a deep love for the place and people who entered there; thus if you are one a dem you have love too.
So no ‘suck teet to your’ rant. Rather commiserations.
We cannot discard our hard won symbols even when they appear quite passe and supplanted by other jewels!!
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I imagine that the running costs of (even air conditioning) these new public buildings, not to mention salaries, wages, emoluments, etc for those occuping them (including security personnel) would be so great, that little may remain for the nuts and bolts which are needed in the field. These facilities might be sold to a willing property funds and leased back for fifty years, to avail funds to reorganize governance and repay short term debts.
Let private investors / cooperatives buy trucks and receptacles for sorting waste, repair water mains, acquire sewage pumps and the like, and suitably charge for services going forward. Taxpayers would have to assure that cash is not merely used to tittilate the unions nor political fulfillments. -
Did Combemere have this “environmental” problem 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 years ago ?
There are medical, health and environmental professionals who can investigate and offer the answers we need.
If this problem occurred at the Central Bank building what would be done to solve it.
I hope the Combemere alumni will continue to fight for their school.
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Errol Barrow is turning in his grave – wish he would turn so hard that he would force his body to appear at the bed of each one of these idiots giving them such a scare they will all get on a plane and leave the building!
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EWB attended Cawmere up to 3rd form before transferring to Kolij.
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Sargeant 11.32
“Is there anyone capable of diagnosing what is wrong with the building? Is there anyone capable of taking remedial action ( and I don’t mean a few spritzers of Jeyes Fluid in corners) to clear offensive smells.”
What? Here in Barbados? Seriously?
Clearly not. So instead of wasting more time and money, either raze the buildings to the ground and announce the sudden mysterious availability of hundreds of millions for the building of yet another brand new completely unnecessary government department edifice, or even better, a block of ‘low income housing apartments’ to be built by their ‘friends’ at a wildly over-inflated costs, or else spend a few grand getting real professional advice from overseas and a few more hundred grand dealing with it properly once and for all.
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All this talk about Combermere and its preservation, what has its “elite” old scholars done for the empowerment of blacks in Barbados? To wear your alma mater like some medal won for a simple trick while a handful of whites own you and your island is crap.
Tear the bloody school down…Rebuild the road at Whitehill, St. Andrew!!
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Is the issue about Combermere per se or a flawed management process that has led us to the current predicament. There is St.Pauls Primary School and others we can use as examples of a flawed process.
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Actually, I wanted to piss a few Bajans off and state a personal observation in the meantime.
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Hants November 17, 2016 at 9:43 AM #
We had ordinary Army Medics, not Medical Officers, who used to routinely carry out such investigations,as well as air quality tests in buildings, workshops and storehouses. -
@David, The issue is that the Combemere problem appears to be environmental. It must be investigated and rectified.
No point jumping to conclusions when a scientifically based answer can be found.
The st.Pauls problem appears to be poor maintenance.
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In the court of public opinion,Combermerians are not going to get a lot of support of John Public over this issue.
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@Hants
Both issues are about inept management and lack of transparency.
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@ Colonel Buggy,
They are probably doing a cost / benefit analysis to see if there is an opportunity for maximized profitability. lol
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Yes David but you know that I am always in a rush to look for an immediate solution to a problem.
We all know that everything in Barbados “takes time” and not a lot of people can walk, chew gum and type a message on an iphone lol.
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A fellow on the block told me that if Combermere School was under the port folio of the Minister of Culture, by the start of the new term, Bizzy would have cleared out all of is tenants ,in Sky Mall to accommodate the students, and to make even more money off the taxpayers.
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Eureka!
The BU cognoscenti and chatterati have now found the cause of the poor academic performance of Cawmere in recent times.
The ‘foul’ air has been addling the brains of the students and indeed the teachers.
Bushie, there is your answer. It is not the fault of your brass-bowl school mate V P (“P” as in Parris and in Principal).
Expect Cawmere to fall dramatically on the league table of choices at the Common Entrance Exam.
King David is at it again in his Fecal Kingdom. Every thing that ghost was associated with is turning to pure shit.
From CLICO to the DLP to Barbados and now its former icon of social engineering to fulfil the Barrow dream project, Cawmere.
Why not make King David (the antithesis of GHA and EWB) the country’s next National hero?
What took 6 men from 1951 to 2007 to build, King David and his successor took less than 8 years to destroy.
Right, Bushie!
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COW went to Cawmere as well.
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@ Vincent Haynes November 17, 2016 at 4:05 PM
That’s a fact. And he will tell you the other boys used to call him “Eddie White Mice”.
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COW went to Cawmere as well.
So did the fellow who used to drive a Sanitation Truck, who, a few weeks ago in the press, threatened to throw his dead chickens in front of the new BWA offices. -
COW went to The Lodge
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