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“I cannot imagine that any other founding heads have had a project quite like this one,” says Haileybury Malta founding principal Louise Salmond Smith.

When she first visited the former Royal Naval Hospital in Mtarfa, destined to become the school’s home, it had been empty for decades and was in disrepair, with graffiti on the walls and smashed glass on the floor.

Nevertheless, she could immediately imagine it as a school, and not only that, but “one of the most beautiful schools in existence, because it is just absolutely stunning”.

Three-year wait for the school site

The imposing building - whose doors will open to pupils in September - sits on top of a hill across the valley from the walled city of Mdina.

“It has beautiful views, and all you can hear are the birds singing to each other and the trees rustling in the wind,” says Salmond Smith.

This tranquillity is important, she adds, because a lot of the Mediterranean island is very heavily developed, and for students living in the more built-up areas, attending Haileybury Malta will be like “going out to the countryside”.

However, breathing new life into the former military hospital, built between 1915 and 1920, has been “a huge project”, and the part Salmond Smith has played in it has been very different from the role she envisaged when she relocated to the island from England in September 2022.

“I think if you had asked me just before I started what my job would entail, I would have said choosing paint for the classrooms, choosing educational resources, picking out the uniform, employing staff...”

But, while this has indeed been part of her role, she has also had to deal with a litany of issues that would test the patience of even the hardiest educator - so much so that, well over three years after she joined the school, it is still operating in a temporary campus in the town of Tarxien.

Unearthing the past - and cats

That may sound like a long time, but Salmond Smith makes clear the scale of the challenge they have been facing.

“[We’ve] been dealing with walls that are immensely thick and trying to get wi-fi through them; a roof with steel girders that have deteriorated after being against limestone for a century; asbestos; Roman remains - all sorts of things.”

Roman ruins, in particular, have complicated the renovation of their school site - showing why new schools are not generally built in such historic locations.

Salmond Smith laughs, for instance, that it felt like they had discovered “half of ancient Rome” on the spot earmarked for the school’s sports hall.

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“Before you do a large build like this, you have to excavate, and you have to have the archaeological survey to make sure there’s nothing too surprising underneath.

“They found some silos, which were certainly Roman and significant enough for us not to be able to lay any foundations, so there was no prospect of being able to build anything at all on that particular area of the site.”

More recent history has also affected the project, due to the presence of tunnels underneath the building that were built as an escape route for hospital staff and patients in the event of an attack during the two world wars, explains Salmond Smith. Some are “huge”, she says, and “you could drive a car down them”.

Digging into them was, therefore, a risk during the building work - one that was avoided. Now, though, the tunnels are “completely closed off, so there is no chance of losing any of the children or any of the staff down them”.

The founding principal’s latest challenge has been getting to grips with the implications of having a colony of stray cats residing in the school grounds.

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“We obviously don’t want to displace them, so I’m in the process of writing a risk assessment so we can make sure that the cats are safe, and so are the children.”

Tragedy strikes

The project was also hit by tragedy when, in March 2023, director and co-founder Anthony Polak died suddenly. This brought a halt to the project until all the legalities had been dealt with.

His death was “a shock”, Salmond Smith says - he had been a parent at Haileybury UK and his vision for a sister school in Malta was close to fruition.

However, the loss made those who had been working alongside him “all the more determined to ensure that his brainchild was successful,” she says.

And, ultimately, solutions have been found to all the problems that have presented themselves.

The sports hall, for instance, was moved to an adjacent site, and one of the school’s sports pitches - which did not require the digging of foundations - now sits atop the Roman remains instead.

Meanwhile, the school has continued operating as normal, and this June it passed a notable milestone when the first Haileybury Malta cohort to sit International GCSEs finished their exams.

“They are a fantastic bunch - they’ve worked so hard, and we’re really looking forward to seeing their results in August,” the principal says.

Lessons to learn

Overall, the sheer scale and scope of the build has been an education, says Salmond Smith, who admits she has “learned an awful lot about things that I never imagined I would” - including as a leader and a founding head.

Previously, she was head of The Prebendal School in Chichester - one of the oldest schools in the UK. In this new role, she has found that setting up policies from scratch - instead of inheriting someone else’s - has involved a lot of careful thought, “because you want to get it right”.

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The school has had to think long and hard, for instance, about its admissions policy and how proficient students will have to be in English to gain a place.

This led to the decision that, from Year 5 upwards, prospective students will be interviewed to determine their level of English. And from September, the “Haileybury Academic Pathway” will provide intensive English lessons for students requiring more support.

In terms of the qualities that have been important to her as a leader, Salmond Smith emphasises the value of patience and trust.

“Sometimes you do just have to sit and wait something out,” she says. “The thing I’ve had to be most patient about is getting on to the campus, but along the way there have also been lots of other things where I’ve had to just take a deep breath and trust that it will happen.”

Why trust matters so much

She also uses that watchword of trust when talking about staff.

“It’s about understanding that there will be constraints on your time, so you must trust your team to do their jobs. After all, if you are a founding head, you appointed them,” Salmond Smith says.

The importance of trust extends to the wider school community, too.

“If you have a school of 500, I don’t think anyone expects you to know the names of all the parents, but if you’ve got 50, there’s really no excuse,” she says.

“My staff team and I worked hard in that first year to make sure that we were a close community, and that has really reaped rewards.”

This was particularly true of communications, as the planned move to the new site had to be delayed repeatedly.

“Even if the message you’re delivering is a frustrating one for parents, at least if they understand that it’s authentic, and that there are reasons why the situation has become the way it is - whether it’s a hole in the roof, Roman remains or the death of a director - they will remain loyal; they will remain trusting of you.”

Growing gradually

Salmond Smith also believes there have been real advantages to the school’s gradual growth, from 50 pupils in its first year to 130 currently, and a predicted 300 come September. The teaching staff, meanwhile, will increase from the current 18 to around 30 in September.

“You’re trying to set the ethos of the school, and I feel that is easier to do if you grow gradually,” she explains.

“It’s really hard if you open on day one with 300 children and you’re trying to create the feeling of the school, because everyone’s bringing their own experience from their previous school with them - whether that’s staff or pupils.”

Getting that ethos right is vital because, while you can have a temporary campus, she says, “you cannot run a school with temporary values”.

Despite the headaches and heartaches, Salmond Smith has no regrets about the years spent on the project and the school’s journey.

“It’s never been quiet - there has never been a lull - and I know that I won’t get an opportunity like this again, so I’m really glad that I jumped in and did it.”