Paget Primary helped land her the Schools' Secretary of the Year award.

Mrs. Scott was voted for the award by the 48 secretaries in attendance at the annual Schools' Secretary Luncheon at the White Sands Hotel in Paget.

Guest speaker Crystal Clay of the Department of Personnel read out the letters submitted by the schools' principals on behalf of their secretaries and Wendell Smith's letter helped Mrs. Scott win the award.

To avoid bias the names of the secretaries were omitted when Mrs. Clay read the letters. The award has been presented for about 17 years and Mrs. Scott was honoured to win.

She has only been at the school since June of last year, but has already made quite an impression, Mr. Smith noted in his letter.

"Mrs. Scott has added her wonderful professionalism to our school,'' Mr.

Smith wrote.

"She is a lady who models to our students the personal qualities that every employee, in any field, should demonstrate. She is courteous, polite, respectful, punctual, considerate, highly knowledgeable about her field, displays a very high work ethic, is a team player and is dependable. Her quality of work is invariably outstanding.'' Mrs. Scott's arrival at the school during the summer coincided with the changing of the office to a new location. She had her input on the layout of the office, the principal revealed.

"Mrs. Scott also demonstrates vision, for she personally mapped out the room plan for our new office so that ideal working conditions could exist,'' said Mr. Smith.

"This has made for a better work environment for students, staff and parents alike. This vision has enabled her to carry out her duties in a manner conducive to qualities she values; confidentiality, orderliness, efficiency and productivity.'' Though her name was missing when the letter was read out, there were some things contained in it that let her know she was being spoken of.

"I knew he had written a letter but I didn't know the contents of it,'' she said. "There was one part of the letter that I did recognise.'' Mrs. Marjorie Armstrong of Purvis Primary won second place.

Mrs. Scott, who worked for seven years at Victor Scott as well as for an insurance company for a couple of years, prides herself on bringing a high level of professionalism to her work.

"I had to go through a lot of trials when I started here, re-organising the filing system,'' she said.

"There were a lot of things going on at the school, it was very busy and very stressful. As a secretary it's important to be able to get your hands on everything as you need it.'' Mrs. Scott, wife to Ralph and mother of two teenage daughters, Shanay (17) and Shari (13), is not only responsible to the principal and deputy principal Mrs.

Terry Cox, but is also there for the 24 teachers and 265 students, all with their own needs.

Then there are the parents, as well as other inquiries at the school. "It's important to know everybody,'' she says of the students.

"I love it here, I try to make wherever I work a pleasant experience. I can come in one day with the intention of doing A, B and C but at 3 p.m. I wouldn't even have gotten to A.

"Children will come in, they need this or need that, `I don't feel well, can you call my mom' or `Mrs. Scott, I don't have a bus ticket today, how am I going to get home?' "Then with the teachers I have to take messages from their calls. I have to make sure the attendance is in every day and if children aren't in school I have to call their parents to find out why. Then I have to do a report for the attendance officer on a daily basis.'' Mrs. Scott's duties at the school go even further than that.

"You even find yourself being a nurse to the children,'' she revealed.

"I worked in the private sector for a couple of years but here is more demanding. No two days are alike which makes every day interesting.

"Mr. Smith and Mrs. Cox make things easy for me in that they are not last minute people. They know I have a whole lot of other things to deal with.'' She added: "One of the things I always swear by is whatever I do in life is not to please man but to please God.

"When you do that you know everything else will fall into place. In every business the secretary should do their best to make whoever they come into contact with feel important. The children are the easy part.''