Volume 1, Issue 17
27.05.2022
St Edward’s College
Dwardu’s Scoops The Nightingale Connection By Mark Cassar
Florence Nightingale or better known as ‘The lady with the lamp’ is revered as a visionary icon of the healthcare reform and modern nursing. Nightingale’s ties with Malta go back to well before she gained her hallowed status and she is known to have visited Malta on two occasions. The first time as a tourist in 1849 and the second time in transit on her way to Crimea when Malta was an essential supply depot and an important military training base for troops.
In this issue…. Old College…...…………...Pg1—3 Public speaking prep ……….....Pg4 Harnessing water…….……..Pg5 Classroom libraries………...Pg6 Drama prep…………….......Pg7 Wheelie basketball………..Pg7 IB Graduands ………......Pg8 On the waves ..………...Pg9 Little gardeners ………….....Pg9 Simar the beautiful ……..Pg10-11 Summer Ball …………Pg 12
A Victorian postcard showing the rear view of Cottonera Hospital ( Courtesy: The Richard Ellis Collection)
During her short stays on the island, she was fascinated with the Knights of St. John’s rich history and expressed great admiration at the way the knights, better known as Hospitallers, treated their patients with great respect and dignity at the Sacra Infermeria. Florence Nightingale gained her fame during her experience in Turkey (1854-1856) when leading a team of nurses to staff the British Army Hospital at Scutari during the Crimean War. In the first weeks of her deployment at Scutari, Nightingale assessed the hospital conditions as far worse than previously thought. The wards were vastly overcrowded, patients were covered with soiled linen, the water supply was contaminated, food inedible and sewage being directly discharged onto floors. Nightingale instantly condemned the crowding and unsanitary conditions at the army hospital. In order to diminish and control the rapid spread of infection, she put her nurses to work by sanitizing the wards and bathing and clothing patients correctContinued on pg 2
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From hospital to College ly. Nightingale inevitably also addressed the more basic problems of providing decent food, hot water and ventilating the wards. When Nightingale returned to London 3 years later, she was considered a national hero because of her timely interventions and improvements at Scutari which had drastically reduced the mortality rate and boosted morale amongst military personnel.
From pg1
A Victorian postcard showing the front view of Cottonera Hospital circa 1890 ( Courtesy: The Richard Ellis Collection)
Florence Nightingale’s impact exerted substantial influence on nursing and public health, in fact her political influence resulted in reforms of a higher level of nursing practice and education namely health sanitation, infection control, nutrition, and health promotion.
Back in 1870 the British Government in Malta had purchased a large parcel of land near the outskirts of Zabbar for the building of a new Military Hospital and the Royal Engineers were entrusted with the designs and building of the new hospital. When the Royal Engineers were at their initial planning stages of the hospital design, they indeed based their designs on the proposals drawn up by Florence Nightingale more than a decade earlier. The new hospital to be named ‘Cottonera Hospital’ opened its doors to its first patients in 1873. The hospital was originally intended to be a regimental hospital serving in the Cottonera district area but shortly after Cottonera Hospital took on the role of a general military hospital. Back then Cottonera Hospital was built as a modernised state-of-the-art hospital and was soon considered to be one of the best hospitals of southern Europe. The hospital complex total cost, including the purchase of the land was of £21,000. The new hospital was built on three floors with sanitary facilities such as ablutions and hot and cold running water in each ward. The second and third floor consisted of two large wards, one on each side with each ward having a capacity of 32 beds and another two small wards of 2 beds each for special cases. The ground floor level consisted of another two wards, one for prisoners and the other one for patients with contagious diseases whilst the smaller rooms in between served as surgery and waiting rooms. Great importance was given on ventilation in Page 2
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line with Nightingale’s proposals and each ward had a pavilion from one end to the other with large verandas which allowed free circulation of fresh air whilst at the same time providing shelter from the Mediterranean summer and winter elements. Another of Nightingale’s proposals was that hospital buildings should only be used for attending the sick and wounded and nothing else. As a result, the Doctor’s Quarters and the Nursing Sisters Quarters at Cottonera Hospital were located in two separate outbuildings on both the western and eastern side of the hospital grounds. The kitchen facilities, laundry and main storerooms were housed in a separate building at the rear of the hospital in order to have the main hospital block solely for the treatment and nursing of its patients. Cottonera Hospital will always be remembered for the major role it played in World War I when Malta was nicknamed as the Nurse of the Mediterranean after treating thousands of servicemen from the Gallipoli and Salonika campaign. Undoubtedly, Florence Nightingale’s observations during her time at Scutari hospital in Turkey and her proposals for reform helped Malta heal thousands of soldiers wounded during the Great War. Cottonera Hospital ceased operating as a general military hospital in 1920 when it was replaced by the new Mtarfa Military Hospital and instead in 1929, St Edward’s College was established as a Catholic college based on the principles of British public schools. One hundred and forty-nine years after Cottonera Hospital received its first patients and 93 years after St. Edward’s College was established, Florence Nightingale’s visionary proposals for hospital welfare can still be vividly felt to this present day, fortunately not as hospital patients but as college students, educators and visitors alike.
Sources Text Reference • https://ojin.nursingworld.org/ • Malta, Florence Nightingale and the Crimean War by Michael Galea DPA Image Reference • Florence Nightingale Portrait: https:// www.wikipedia.org/ • The Richard Ellis Collection (as referenced)
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Miss Florence Nightingale
Dwardu’s Scoops
A purgatory turned to victory
By Annette Agius
Public speaking can be challenging at times, however practising this skill from a young age helps overthrow the initial difficulties and helps people get used to addressing crowds. These young students had the opportunity to practise and feel the challenge of speaking and presenting their own ideas to others. The young students were divided into two groups where they had to sell and present a product to their audience in a fun way. They worked as a team and used their imagination in order to pitch their product as a useful and necessary item. The products of the two teams were a kitchen roll and a chair. Although these products seemed a little strange at first, the students managed to come up with creative ideas such as an aqua gaming chair aimed at being used in summer giving the user a swimming feeling while playing games. Another product they came up with was Smear Kitchen Roll which is made of soft material and can be used in different scenarios. The students were assessed for their presentation, body language and creativity. The best team with the most points won their favourite treat Page 4
Volume 1, Issue 17
Water conservation to the fore By Dean Galea Pellicano
On Wednesday 11 of May an exhibition was set up to showcase the cisterns found at St Edward’s College. This exhibition’s main aim was to raise awareness about water conservation and the importance of have such features at college. This was a multi-year group effort culminating in an exhibition and live demonstration. Prior to this stage there were other preliminary stages in which year 13 students Abdu Al Matroud and Muad Elhetki helped in clearing up access to the cisterns, cistern observation and helping in the collection of water samples. The exhibition was set up beneath the arches of the English department, close to one of the cistern openings. An ROV was set up so that when the students finished with the exhibition, they could move over to follow the demonstration. th
The exhibition was composed of various elements: •
Three different plans, all having different dates, of college showing the cisterns to show their location and size.
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Footage taken during probing of the cistern’s openings was played on loop so show give the students their first peep inside of the cistern.
•
Four bottles containing four water samples taken from the four different cisterns found at college. These samples were chemically tested by year 12 students (Julian Coppini, Mia Bella Galea and Sara Beres) for the following properties: pH Levels, Conductivity, hardness and boiling point. The results will be used for future studies aimed and purifying the cistern water for human consumption. Other year 13 students (Jia Jin (Andy), Yulin Wang (Edward) and Hanna Darabos) had also started the process but could not be at the exhibition.
•
Historical documentation retrieved from the national archives mentioning the Cottonera Hospitals’ cisterns. A summary was compiled by Alfonso Resisand Tolomeo.
•
A plan made by year 10 students (Yani Muscat, Andreas Aquilna Bondin, Raoul La Cognata and Alfonso Reisang Tolomeo ) displaying all locations of the pipes which serve as water input to the cisterns.
The exhibition was set up with the help of ESS year 12 students who did the heavy lifting. Many of these students also gave interviews on camera where they talked about their involvement in the project and gave the reasoning of why they did that part, and for which ultimate purpose. These interviews will be used to showcase student participation in such project by the water services corporation and give college the good standPage 5
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From Pg 5
ing in sustainable living that it deserves. Opposite the exhibition, under a tent to shelter the students from the sun, there was the live demonstration with the remote operating vehicle (ROV) which is a submersible robot used to take footage, pictures and even sonar scans of underwater spaced, including underground cisterns. Students from Years 6, 8 and 10 had the possibility to observe and even drive the ROV, under the watchful eye and guidance of the operator. The students learned about water turbidity, silting and even bedrock type, since all of these things were clearly visible on the screen which was giving out live footage taken by the ROV which was in the cisterns diving in the dark waters. What clear is that much of the wall of the cisterns are hewn in bedroom, and are datable to the 1600s, making them contemporary to the building of the bastions of the Cottonera lines, hence pointing to the Knights of St John as their maker. The project helped in pinpointing issues with college’s current water catchment system and various solution have been proposed to fix these issues. The next stage would be to work on water purification and system physical improvement, so as to conserve and maintain the already good infrastructure and look towards the full distribution and sustainable use of water use college wide.
A thousand lives well-lived By Sylvana Debono
When life gives you books, to turn them into lives. This may be a bit of a play on the traditional lemons/lemonade saying and yet it holds true. Books enable the reader to live lives centuries and cultures apart. In January I was a geisha in Meiji Japan, in February I rode on the shoulders of Albert Speer in Nazi Germany. March and April saw me immersed in witchcraft in the All Souls Trilogy and this month, May, is Anne Boleyn month. So, when Rebecca Seaberg approached me for some help with the Class Libraries, I dropped everything and did my level best. The aim of this initiative is to revive and restore the libraries in each of the college classrooms. “This initiative will go from Year 1 to Year 6,” explained Ms Seaberg. The contribution is modest: as much as a packet of biscuits and less than a hamburger. For that price, a book can be donated, and the donors will have the honour of having their name on a label for posterity to not their contribution to education and culture. Ms Seaberg explained that after all the collections have been concluded, the books will be bought according to the year group they will be used in.
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Ms Seaberg concluded that if this project is successful it will be extended to the Middle and Senior Schools.
Volume 1, Issue 17
Painting all corners
As the Middle School prepares for a soireé of drama and music, under the able direction of Mr Jeremy de Maria, the students are also busy preparing props and backdrops for the evening. Artist and teacher Mr Ryan Falzon is marshalling his troops and putting their best brush forward to ensure that the evening will be a success.
Basketball on wheels By Paul Ferrante
Inclusivity can only happen, truly, through self-awareness and subsequently, through awareness of others (empathy). A session of wheelchair basketball was held at St Edward's College, Malta led by Coach Mike and Coach Denise from Indiana (US) for the practical sessions. Talks/sessions about from Wheelchair Basketball National team player Noel Aquilina were held with all groups of students who participated.
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Dwardu’s Scoops
Friends with the earth By Cheryl Ann Cuschieri and Radka Zarkhova
Congratulations! ...to the new IB Diploma graduands: Al Matroud Abdu Rahman, An Junqiao (Stephen), Chen Ketong (Kylie), Darabos Hanna Laura, Degas Faucher Soleil*, Duzzi Nulli Samuele, Dworzynska Aleksandra, Elhetki Muad Haroun M, el Kaloush Mohamed*, Farrugia Ervin Florian, Fernandez Rusenkova Cynthia Melinna, Gatt Pierluigi, He Minrui (Rex)*, Jin Jia (Andy), Ma Yuyuan (Eric)*, Montes Cubria Ines*, Sharara Akram Ossama, Shirai Kosei, Smith Sebastian, Stranomiti Emmanouela*, Wang Luxiaohe (Michaela)*, Wang Yulin (Edward), Waters Jaylan*, Webb Theo David, Wu Youjunje (Joe), Yamada Niito* Page 8
*in absentia
Volume 1, Issue 17
A radio-worthy experience
By Julian Coppini
On the 18th of May 2022, I had the opportunity to experience what it would be like to work in the radio, podcast and webinar industry. I was asked as College Capitan to give a student’s perspective in Newsbook’s webinar on education in Malta and in the EU.
It has been a dream of mine to write, perform and air my own podcast since my introduction to podcasts and radio - this experience being my first actual time speaking on an aired program. The experience was better than anything I could have imagined, the microphones, lighting, topic, and room of people with different views on the same topic. The program was centred around education, speaking about topics such as robotics and AI in teaching and the importance and disregard of certain subjects. Towards the end of the program, I was asked “if you could change one thing or add something to the educational system, what would it be” and since I was presenting a student’s point of view, I spoke about my concern with lack of regard towards life skills - not just learning what we will need for our careers, but for life. I have been a fan of radio and podcasts since I first heard Orson Welles’s broadcast on racism, aired in 1946, over my grandfather’s favourite historical podcast. From there, I began listening to more recent podcasts such as Crime Junkie, History of Everything and Zane and Heath: Unfiltered. This experience is one I will never forget, and I will certainly be returning to the microphone in the future!
Ten tiny green fingers While playing in the playground the children spotted Joe, our college gardener, laying down new plants. The children soon started to ask questions and he invited them over to experience it for themselves. They all had the chance to scoop in the soil and plant a bush in a pot. Throughout this activity the children had the chance to develop further their fine motor skills, sensory development as well as improve their concentration abilities.
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By Stephanie Grech
Dwardu’s Scoops
A visit to Simar
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A recent visit to the Simar natural reserve brought the boys in the early years within touching distance, not only of wildlife but also of birds they normally simply read and hear about. The trip was not just educational, with the staff from Birdlife Malta taking pains to explain in ‘kiddie-talk’. It was also fun—so many trees to climb and worlds to conquer!
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St Edward’s College
St Edward's College Triq San Dwardu Birgu (Citta Vittoriosa) Cottonera - BRG 9039 Malta, Europe
At St Edward's College we strive to create exemplary citizens in this increasingly globalised and technological world, placing strong emphasis on character formation, genuine intercultural understanding and leadership skills which will assist them to contribute to the well-being of society.
Phone: +356 2788 11 99 Email: communications@stedwards.edu.mt
Postcard showing rear view of the Cottonera Hospital, later St Edward’s College—See story inside
After two years and more of no community activity, the St Edward’s family is back together and organising activities. Under the able stewardship of Mr Peter Moore, This year’s St Edward’s College Summer Ball is set to be a resounding success. The bookings are now brisk and this may be your very last chance to book a seat. Tables seat 10 persons and the venue, Xara lodge is quiet and ideal for good food, good company and, of course, some music.
