St Monica School Prize Day

This year's prize-giving ceremony at St Monica School, Birkirkara, had a strong Christmas spirit. Celebrated on one of the rainiest and coldest December evenings last year, the ceremony also generated a feeling of warmth, colour and Christmas.

The evening began with the school hymn To Mother Teresa Spinelli, followed by a welcoming speech by the head girl, who nostalgically, recalled highlights of her school life, having completed her secondary education.

The school choir, under the direction of Sr Vania Bonello and Sr Pauline Micallef, and the school orchestra, directed by Mrs Anna Zammit, then resumed, regaling the audience with a Christmas medley and a Brahms piece which received a well-deserved round of applause.

In her address, school head Antoinette Pace gave an overview of how the school puts its threefold mission into action. It functions as a civic educational institution following the principles of the National Minimum Curriculum, as a Church school, passing on the spiritual values that give real meaning to life, and as a Spinellian institution, embracing and respecting inclusiveness while offering a holistic education.

This is the vision underlying the school's ethos and pedagogical programme, Mrs Pace said, as she gave an update of all the work - curricular and extracurricular - carried out at St Monica throughout the scholastic year.

The much-awaited Prize Day performance brought together the outstanding talents and efforts of a number of students and adult helpers, under the direction of expression arts teacher Rita Vassallo.

This year the musical Scrooge was the appropriate choice for the school's Prize Day. The immortal tale of the misanthropic miser who is transformed into a benevolent employer after several ghostly visitations on Christmas Eve exerted its well-known charm on the audience.

The 100-odd young actresses, singers and musicians, aged between six and 16, performed with confidence. The costumes and set evoked a proper Victorian London and the final curtain fell on many happy, satisfied faces, pianists and violinist to the loud ovation of the audience.

The culmination of the evening was the actual prize-giving ceremony. Dr Joseph Grima, assistant director of education for non-state schools, who presided over the ceremony, distributed prizes to those students who did well academically and in other aspects.

Dr Grima concluded with a short speech during which he stressed the important role of education in passing on proper values to youngsters. He was then presented with a painting of Mdina cathedral by an art student attending St Monica as a souvenir of the occasion.