Mtarfa school's progress attracts human and financial resources

During the prize-giving ceremony of Sir Temi Zammit Boys' Secondary School, Mtarfa, Alfred Mallia, operations director at the Education Division, congratulated the school for the work that the school staff carried out under the school management team's leadership. He said that ever since he was appointed to his post three years ago he had made it a point to attend every prize day ceremony at the school, and had therefore noted at first hand the school's progress in terms of educational attainment and its positive school ethos.

He said that the Education Division is closely monitoring the situation and investing in both human and financial resources to upgrade the school. In this regard, Mr Mallia emphasised that certain strategic decisions such as the posting of newly qualified teachers to the school, were taken precisely for this purpose.

The school head, Carmel S. Micallef, spoke about the school's long-term plan to provide holistic educational fulfilment, emphasising the implementation of the curriculum.

"We aim to enhance the teachers' professional involvement and to instil in the students a sense of responsibility, encouraging them to sit for SEC examinations so that they can proceed to further education," he said.

Mr Micallef highlighted the various school activities held during the past year, including the language week, the Health and Safety project, the drive on healthy eating habits, the "America 24/7" week of activities, religious processions held within the school grounds to commemorate Our Lady of Sorrows and Corpus Christi, and the Christmas Mass and procession, in which Mgr Mario Grech, Bishop of Gozo, had participated.

Students and teachers had taken part in various projects, student exchanges, and cultural visits to other countries, including a visit to Poland as part of a Comenius project with six other countries, a student exchange to Tunisia with participants from Algeria, Italy and Jordan, a visit last month to Verona, Italy, with young people from various countries, and another visit to neighbouring Sicily was planned. A talent show was organised in May by the students, staff and parents. All these activities enhanced the relationship among all stakeholders, that is, teachers, parents and students, stressed Mr Micallef.

During the ceremony, which was held in May, a considerable number of students were awarded prizes for their achievements at school. The programme included choral singing by the school choir, a lively dance performance and a play representing the Hiroshima tragedy.

The school choir, made up of 24 students, under the leadership of Sandra Sammut, gave an impressive interpretation of three songs, namely, The Circle of Life, Adeimus and Oh Happy day.

Students under the direction of Joanne Ellul Genovese and Lindsey Chetcuti performed a lively representation of the two songs The Bongo Song and Music makes me loose control.

The play depicting the Hiroshima tragedy was an adaptation from Anestesija, a play by Oreste Calleja, symbolically representing a typical family's everyday life while at the same time showing that people sometimes refrain from acknowledging reality. The play was adapted and directed by Christopher Azzopardi, Julie Galea and Ingrid Farrugia.