Update on the new school

[Christiane]

I visited the school at the beginning of October as I have an apartment in Vittoriosa and took a walk up there one afternoon. The headmaster was charming and took me on a guided tour of the new school which opened in early September. The school is now a secondary college which combines both types of senior school - the equivalent of having a grammar school and a secondary modern under one roof rather than the segrated system that exists within most of the Maltese secondary schools.

The school looks really good with bright, airy modern classes in buildings that mirror the architecture of the existing buildings so that the overall effect is one of sympathetic updating. The last building to be renovated is the hall on which work on restoring the bell tower is about to start . They are also still working on the extensive sports grounds at the back of the school where they will have an artificial football pitch amongst other facilities. No swimming pool though and the headmaster was quite bemused to know that we had one up on the bastions.

Overall, it was a very heartening experience to see the old school revitalised in such a good way. I asked about the well in the centre of the playground which is no longer visible and the head said that, although the well tower had been removed, the well is still being used to flush all the toilets!

[marts]

Thanks for that update, I'm sure many of us were worried about how the old place was going to be after the changes, it's good to know that the school is still a nice place to visit, I was fortunate in that I visited a couple of years ago, but I must admit that several areas were looking a bit run down.
At least they haven't demolished everything and just build housing or factories as could have been the case, so thanks again for taking the walk and updating us

Martin Ebbens
1957-1960

[verdala66]

The new and refurbished buidlings are looking very smart. There are recent pictures located in the gallery and some snaps of the mini reunion held at the Magic Kiosk in October 2008. Best regards - Alastair

[Liz Mardel]

Today I've had this message from Brother Martin Azzopardi of the new St Margaret's College, Verdala.
He said -

"As we do annually, we participated in the Malta Science week for young Scientists and our project was about : "Pure Honey a characteristic of the Maltese Islands" . With great pleasure and honour I'd like to inform you that our Science Honey Project Team won the Public's Prize and this is of great satisfaction for our College. This means that the majority of the public including adults and students who visited the Science Week at St. James Cavallier, in Valletta, voted for our College Project with the theme: Pure Honey a characteristic of the Maltese Islands. Thanks in regards and it would be a good idea if you put both photos and project on the verdala website."

I'm sure we can all share his pride in his students' success - well done all concerned!

I'll put the photo of the science team in the 'Verdala Building Update' section - not very appropriate but the next best thing - OK Alastair? The Honey project is 1.72 MBs and several pages long. I don't know whether there's a suitable place to put that, Alastair?

He also told me that there's no sign yet of the packet of 60-odd photos that I'd hoped would arrive in good time for the College's big Open Day next Sunday. Keep your fingers crossed! Has anyone else got photos they can send to Br. Martin for the archive - it's good, isn't it, that they want to keep alive the memory of the RN school's thirty years on Santa Margherita Hill!

Following Christianne's comments at the beginning of this thread yes, the new architecture seems to meld very happily with 'our' elegant old barrack blocks doesn't it! Our temporary buildings were a good old hotch-potch weren't they (a bit disloyal, that, to my Joe who was in charge of putting one of them up!) but the whole place looks very impressive now.