‘Good behaviour’ is what is now going to separate the bright girls of Hampton High School in St Elizabeth which has become a victim of its own success.

With 142 girls eligible to go to sixth form, having secured five or more subjects at the Caribbean Examination Council’s (CXC) general proficiency level in June, the Malvern-based school has only space for just over half that number.

“I’ve had to go home and pray about it,” bemoans principal, Heather Murray. “We only have space for 80 girls. Ninety-four of them passed eight subjects or more.”

To resolve the problem, the school has decided to use ‘good behaviour’ as a selection criterion to separate the girls.

Murray discloses that she has had to turn away a girl with seven subjects, “just because of a minor misdemeanour of having an unauthorised cell phone in her possession when she was in fourth form. Something just isn’t right about that,” she says.

Murray, who became principal of the school which was established for poor girls in St Elizabeth by philantropists Hugh Munro and Caleb Dickenson in the middle of the 19th century, adds that under normal circumstances, the girls would have gotten into the sixth form programme.

“I got into sixth form with four subjects and I wasn’t a flawless student. But things have changed now, it’s not just a matter of academics anymore. Every little thing counts as it comes down to a matter of space. The slightest slip-up and you could find that someone else whose record is just that much better gets the edge,” she tells the Sunday Observer.

In the meantime, the girls in the lower forms are being encouraged to take the school’s motto – Summa Virtue et Humanitate (With the utmost courage and courtesy) – even more seriously than ever as there’s no telling when the space crisis will be resolved, despite a $40- million proposal to build a new sixth form block.

See the Observer West on Thursday for a full story on Heather Murray, a giant in education.