From the head of the International Baccalaureate Diploma

Setting Minds At Rest

The start of the summer break had gone splendidly, as our graduating IB students received excellent results. Special metnion should go to former school captain Zakaria Naser Deghaili and Laura Maria Chianese who achieved 40+ Point diplomas. We wish them all the best in there studies at UMIST and the University of Amsterdam respectively.

The great results didn’t end there with a further 11 students acheiveing 30+. We now wish them all the best as they start the next chapter of their educational lives at the Universities of Malta, Leiden, Utrecht, Nottingham, and Trinity college Dublin to name a few. These students had done remarkably well despite the challenging cricumstances they had faced with them being wrenched out of school with very little warning and preparation with the onset of the pandemic. I may be forgiven some pride in saying that many of our students go on to study in major universities all over the world and do themselves and the college proud.

A trying time

The start of a new scholastic year usually brings forth a lot of excitement and antcipation. However, I would have to admit that this year was rather different. Unusually, I was filled with worry and dread. Our second years were returning to school having only been physically in school for 6 of the 17 available weeks of teaching time from January to June. Teaching online for such a long time was incredibly fatiguing for students and it was clear to see that motivation was very low. With these students now being in he crunch time of their diploma and a lot of catch needing to done, I fully expected students to be dragging their feet, falling behind and ultimatley not coming close to reaching their maximum potential.

Happily, I have to say that I was wrong and that my worries proved baseless. The students returned driven and with a strong work ethic. They honored their deadlines and handled the heavy workload efficiently. We were fortunate not to have any more lockdowns and major quarantine periods with this cohort through the year as they played catch up. We now eagerly await their results.

Our new cohort of Year 12 students started their St Edward’s experience in September, with a few famliar faces. One of these, Julian Coppini, was appointed as School Captain in October. Julian is what we would call a lifer, having began his sentence… I mean journey with us from Kindergarten. He strongly embodies and exemplifies all the qualities we would consider Edwardian. Despite there being a number of excellent candidates, Julian’s motivational letter and college perfomance stood out and he has performed his duties as captain and represented the College with distinction.

Of Candles and Cisterns

Despite COVID restrictions our students were able to participate in a number of Projects and actvities throughout the year.

The JAYE program was once again front and center under the effervescent and watchful gaze of Ms Busuttil Gili. Such was the interest this year that we had 2 teams representing college. The first team Eleganzia were rife with big ideas before settling on an online fashion store. While they did not make it to the finals, their mentor was very happy with their growth citing in particular that they were the first student team he had ever witnessed to fully integrated online visa payments directly on their website.

The second team Bodyou, created scented candles ina wide variety of shapes, colors and fragrances. The Phsics laboratory doubled as a production faciliy with the strong smell of various scents wafting from the windows from 8 am every morning. Their venture proved successful and