There are many reasons why the students at the Adult Education School failed to achieve their potential in a traditional school setting, but the homely atmosphere of the AES and the small classes ensure that no one is forgotten or left behind.

During the past year 160 students of both sexes, and all ages and backgrounds, have attended the school in a bid to better themselves and their futures.

And almost 30 have passed their GED this year alone.

Some left school many years ago and have taken the opportunity to go back to the classroom to prove to themselves that they can achieve.

With children now of their own, they want to be able to assist their young ones with homework and bedtime reading.

However, others are still children themselves. As teenagers, they may have not done as well at school as they could have and so choose the alternative route to graduate.

Others who need to catch up choose the AES over Bermuda College.

But, what ever the reason, school director Julia Beach said everyone had the ability to make it and move on. She said there was no such thing as a failure at the Adult Education School.

"A lot of students come here because it has a small group setting and they don't feel confident enough to go to Bermuda College," said Mrs. Beach.

"And we have some students who have graduated, but don't feel ready for college life.

"On average, most people come here for about a year - they arrive in September and graduate in May.

"Everybody does at least six hours a week - depending on what their needs are. We push the students, but we also let them work at their own pace.

"If we are too authoritarian, it turns the students right off. Our aim is to get them to enjoy it, so they want to keep coming back and they actually enjoy learning and most of them actually do."

But Mrs. Beach said there are some students who are nowhere near the standard required for the GED. For those, it is a slower process and may take some time.

But no matter what the ability, the AES will never turn students away. However, it is choosy about the students it takes. It is happy being a charity, as opposed to Government-run, because it has the ability to pick and choose who it wants.

An unwillingness to learn or behaviour problems will not be tolerated for even the shortest while.

Mrs. Beach added: "Each year, we have quite a few who are are going to need a lot of work, even those students who have been referred from the public system.

"Some students come here and have never hardly written. If they are not ready, then they simply come here until they are ready.

"It sometimes amazes me how they get through school unable to write. They simply don't know about paragraphs and sentences.

"With a lot of people we see, including school referrals, we are dealing with basic literacy and numeracy. It's quite worrying. I notice how they are very computer literate, but the problem is reading and writing."

However, on the up side, the AES has graduates who have gone overseas to college and gone on to be teachers, lawyers and executives.

Simone Morrison, 23, is likely to be one of those people. She has worked at the AES for some time, and is now looking forward to going to university in the US in January.

With a broad grin, she said: "The school has given me a second chance. It's the same as going to school, but like a family.

"My weakest subject was math, but having successfully made it through the school, right now I keep telling myself I can do anything."

Beverley McGowan, from Smith's PArish, is a mature student at the school who did not wish to reveal her age.

She has been attending the AES for three years and is aiming to pass her General Education Development (GED) certificate, which is the US equivalent of Bermuda's graduation diploma.

"I was thinking a lot about how I hadn't made it when I went through school and felt I wanted to achieve something. I felt I had missed out," she said.

"I wanted to feel like I had accomplished the high school level in my studies. Math is proving to be a bit of a sticking point, but I feel I have improved in so many ways. I read all the time. I read the newspaper everyday.

"After I finish here, I think I would like to go to Bermuda College. I have always wanted to be a primary school teacher, so maybe that is a direction for me."

Ms McGowan said, as a child, she did not have any self-motivation and failed to grasp subjects quickly.

"I just seemed to go from one year to another and did not really achieve anything. Then I got meningitis and fell so far behind that I never really caught up."

Mrs. Beach said the one thing she admired in Ms McGowan was her enthusiasm to learn.

She said: "Sometimes I walk past a classroom and hear screaming from inside. I think there must be a cockroach, or something, but it is actually Beverly realising that she understands something. It's wonderful to hear.

"This week, Beverly said she now felt really good about herself, but when she first came here, she didn't feel that way. That, in itself, is a major achievement."

And Ms McGowan added: "Sometime I feel I want to explode. I'm now ready to help my children. I'm coaching them to do better at school. I now see the importance of education and want them to do so much better."

And Akilah Mills, 18, left Berkeley Institute after failing to graduate. She was an able student, but someone who was not motivated and did not try. She left school four months before graduation, realising that she had not met the grade. Two months later she was pregnant.

But now, with a daughter to take care of and a growing ambition, Akilah is working towards a career in insurance and has a thirst for knowledge.

She is one of many students at the school who has successfully taken her GED and is due to graduate in June.

"I was more worried about being with my boyfriend than doing school work, but I regret that now," said the teenager.

"The Bank of Butterfield offered me a job, provided I got my GED, so I came here and managed to get it in a matter of months.

"I'm so glad I did it, but I just wish I had worked harder at school first time around.

"It has taken me longer to get here."

Now at Bermuda College, Akilah is due to attend Bermuda Insurance Institute from this August and is aiming for a promising career ahead.

She added: "I realised that after having the baby, every decision I made I had to make for my child.

"I'm lucky because I have a very good boyfriend, but I knew I had to make sure my life was sorted, so her life would be sorted."

Mrs. Beach said without the hard work and dedication of the teachers and volunteers at the school, the students would not have the same success.

She said the teachers at the school had to be special people - not judgmental, but very caring and nurturing.

And she said the atmosphere at the school was deliberately created to make students feel at home, comfortable and able to speak up.

When the school was founded by Berkeley Institute teacher Merle Swan-Williams in 1958 the idea was that it would offer enrichment classes to those who needed a little extra work.

But it has gone on since then from a basic after-school home school to a school that has provided an education to thousands of adults who would otherwise not have been able to achieve.

"Our philosophy here is that people need to take different routes to education - we all don't follow the same path," said Mrs. Beach.

"Some people need to have an alternative route. There are many roads to success, and the traditional school system is just one of them, and we are another.

"The first thing we tell people is that there is no reason why they should feel they are not as good as anybody else. And from the first time they come in, their self confidence improves and their whole attitude changes. They are no longer negative.

"No matter whether they pass their GED or not, they have all achieved in our eyes."