Our fifth Basic 9 cohort sat the Basic Education Certificate Examination in June, and placement through the Computerised School Selection and Placement System has now been released. All thirty-eight candidates have been placed.
This is the fifth year running that every one of our candidates has been placed, and I want to set out honestly how they did — including the part we are not satisfied with.
The headline numbers
- 38 candidates sat the examination
- 38 placed through the CSSPS
- 24 placed in a Category A senior high school
- 11 placed in a Category B senior high school
- 3 placed in Category C or a private senior high school
- Best aggregate: 6
- 14 candidates achieved aggregate 6–10
- 29 candidates achieved aggregate 6–20
Thirty-one of the thirty-eight received one of their first three choices.
Where they did well
Integrated Science was our strongest paper for the third year running, which reflects the weekly practical programme in the laboratory rather than anything clever we did in the revision term. Madam Priscilla Adjei and her department deserve the credit for that.
English Language was strong across the whole cohort, with no candidate below a grade 4. The comprehension work in Basic 7 and 8 does most of that work; by the time we get to revision in Basic 9 the reading habit is either there or it is not.
Where we were weaker
Mathematics was our weakest core paper. Nine candidates dropped a grade between their fourth mock and the BECE itself, which is a pattern we saw last year too and did not fix.
Our reading of it is that the fourth mock comes too late — early May — to leave enough time to act on what it shows. We are moving the mock programme forward for the 2026/2027 Basic 9 cohort: mocks in October, December, February and late March, so that the last one leaves a full ten weeks of targeted revision.
We are also adding a second weekly mathematics prep period for Basic 9 in Terms 1 and 2, taught in sets rather than in class groups.
To this year's Basic 8 parents
School selection is not something to think about in Basic 9. The choices you make on the CSSPS form are constrained by aggregates you start earning now.
We will hold the first Basic 9 selection meeting in the second week of Term 1, and every family will get an individual appointment before the selection window opens. Come with questions.
To the class of 2026
Well done. Thirty-eight of you started Basic 7 here and thirty-eight of you are going on to senior high school. Come back and see us — the gate is open, and the Basic 4s will want to hear from you.
