Gareth Manning, Staff Reporter

THE GRADE Six teacher at the Swallowfield Primary and Junior High School in St Andrew, Dale-Ann Motta-Rady, had Ananda Dean for only three weeks. But in that short time, she could ascertain that Ananda would have done well at her Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT).

The bubbly 11-year-old was an average student, Motta-Rady remembers, but her personality and infectious smile made her stand out from the others.

"She wouldn't wait for me to tell her to do anything. She would just used her initiative," Motta-Rady says.

It has been more than six months since Ananda's decomposed body was discovered in bushes in Belvedere, upper St Andrew, after she was reported missing for two weeks.

But her peers don't dwell on those memories.

From time to time, Motta-Rady says, they remember Ananda and the good times they had, not her horrific demise.

"We don't really want to forget her so from time to time we talk about her. They (the students) are getting over the grief but they still remember her," she says.

In fact, in a corner of the class hangs a chart with poems and pictures in tribute to the smiling girl who made an impact on the lives of her peers.

"We sit in the classroom and we talk about what she used to do. We don't talk about the sad things or how she died, we talk about the fun things about her and what she would say and so on," she says.

Ananda also stands out in Motta- Rady's memories because she loved mathematics.

"She was always the first child to finish her work and then she would always get them right," she recounts.

GSAT forms

She believes Ananda would have moved on to one of the Corporate Area's prominent high schools come September, though, up to the time when she was reported missing, the necessary forms to allow her to sit her GSAT exams were not yet complete.

Ananda's untimely death makes Motta-Rady wonder about the direction in which Jamaica is heading and the kind of future the country really wants for its youths.

"You really wonder why these students have to be taken away - the ones who you expect to bring a brighter Jamaica. The ones who will be the next prime minister, education officer, teacher," she says.

"It really hurts," she adds.

Motta-Rady says, given the circumstances though, parents need to monitor their children more closely, and she encourages teachers to speak to their students more frequently about how to protect themselves while travelling on the nation's streets.

"I tell them to walk in groups and never to walk on the road alone," is just one of the tips she has been giving to her students since Ananda's death.

"I think we need to monitor our children more," she says.