IT was a double celebration for 14-year-old Kayla Brown when she learnt she’d earned grade ones in mathematics and information technology at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) level plus secured a spot on the national youth swimming team.

“I’m very thankful. I’d like to thank God for just helping me get through all the stress, because it really was a lot of stress. It really wasn’t easy,” said the now fourth-form Immaculate Conception High School student.

Kayla shared that her love for swimming runs deep, and she could never imagine diving out of the sport in the name of academics. Instead, she set out to make waves by proving that, with grit and determination, students can excel in the pool and in the classroom.

She said she started competitive swimming two years ago and, in her first year, decided to test the waters by also taking on CSEC subjects at Sophomore Academics to fuel her competitive spirit.

“I had to ask my coach if I could change the times [when] I would swim so I could have time to prepare for CSEC. For school, it wasn’t really interfering with my schoolwork because I was just treating it as extra practise,” she told the Jamaica Observer.

“On Saturdays, that was like my most challenging day because I had swimming early in the morning, and I had to start earlier because, with my math class, it clashed with the timing. I had to do swimming in the morning, then I had math class, then after that I had to go to swimming again, and then on Sunday I had IT classes,” she explained.

Kayla Brown (left) and her mother Tamii Brown pose for a photo together.

The 14-year-old said she’s grateful to have had the support of family members, particularly her parents Tamii and Angel Brown, who drove her from practice to classes every weekend, and teachers who accommodated her hectic schedule.

She shared that when she received her results for information technology, she was not too surprised because she had committed the content to memory. However, maths was a pleasant surprise, especially because it is considered a difficult subject.

A few days after learning her exam results, her acceptance to the national youth swimming team arrived in the mail, and she was riding high on the waves of success.

“I’m very thankful,” said the 14-year-old, adding that without God, her achievements would not be possible.

Her mother shared that while Kayla is not always sure of her career path, she has always been certain that she wants to be a student athlete and explore avenues that would fuel her competitive nature. As a parent, Brown said she felt it was her obligation to nurture that spirit and carve out a path for her daughter’s dreams to become a reality.

“I tell her that, that mind that she has is stronger than some of the people I see at work and interact with on a day-to-day basis. When she decides that she wants to do something and she knows why she wants to do it, she goes after it with everything that she has in her, and that’s really what we saw this year; late nights and early mornings, but she didn’t stop,” Brown told the Sunday Observer.

She shared that parents often have an established view about how things should look or unfold over the years, but times are evolving, and children are often far more intuitive and intelligent than most people believe.

“Once you can understand that this is an objective of the child, I think our role now is to facilitate how that can happen. But, if I would, my encouragement to parents now is just to listen to the child, don’t hold them back. Don’t hold them back from the opportunity just because we did it in fifth form, and the child at third form is showing an interest in it. It’s a commendable interest,” said the mother of two, who also has a son, Micah Brown.

As she recalled her experience, she urged parents to network and seek out individuals who can assist them in the areas they lack knowledge and need support.

“We committed it to God; we prayed as a family that we could have the strength and so on to get through, and then we put in the work. We spoke to all of her support networks: her coaches, so that they knew what she was doing; spoke to the teachers, so that they knew that she was also going for the national team and swimming on a competitive level. Everybody had an understanding as to what was at stake and what was at play,” she shared.

With two subjects down, Kayla is gearing up to tackle principles of accounts in the next external exams. She said she also intends to complete eight subjects in fifth form to bring her tally of CSEC subjects to 11.

“For the people that are trying to do it early, I just want to tell them to go for it because there’s nothing stopping you. You’re not doing all the CSEC subjects yet, so there’s nothing really stopping you from doing it to try your best. Just put your all into it because if you’re doing one or two subjects, you’re not doing the eight other subjects that you’d be doing in grade 11, so you’re under less stress; you get to put more effort into the subject,” said Kayla.

She urged students who also have athletic interests to never limit themselves, adamant that they can chase both dreams at the same time.

“It’s just like when there’s something you want, you just have to put your mind to it. Even if there’s like obstacles and it’s not easy to do it, then you should still go for it,” she encouraged