In those early days besides being all-age it was also what newspapers today describe as 'all-in', although not strictly speaking comprehensive in the usual sense of that word. The school was divided into separate grammar and modern sections but even in those days transition from one to the other was quite easy. As early as 1964 the school was reorganised on comprehensive lines, which meant that the grammar/modern division was removed altogether (although some streaming remained) and from the fourth year upwards pupils had individual timetables with a wide range of optional subjects which they could take at a combination of different levels, as they do today. This change, when it came, was comparatively small and undramatic, in sharp contrast to the upheavals going on in the UK system. 'Comprehensive' is in some ways what Tal Handaq has always been (and could only be) and the word does not have the unpleasant overtones with which it unfortunately so often seems to be associated at home.

In the sixties, after the closure of HM Dockyard and with Malta's approaching independence and the consequent British run-down (yes, it's been going on for a long time!), numbers began to decline, but never as fast as predicted, and in late 1966 there were still nearly 900 pupils at Tal Handaq. The Sixth form was larger than ever, although still small by UK standards, and examination results in CSE and at 'O' and 'A' level improved steadily in both quality and quantity, reaching 433 'O' level subject passes in 1967 and 80 'A' level subject passes in 1968. Even up to 1971, with numbers in the range 700 to 800, there were regularly over 50 'A' level subject passes a year, and remember this was in a comprehensive school which was notably 'bottom-heavy' (seven first-year forms but only three in the fifth year) and to which parents frequently (and not surprisingly) did not bring out their older and more academically inclined children.

1969 saw the demise of single Service schools and the formation of a joint organisation called the Service Children's Education Authority. This was something else which had comparatively little effect on Tal Handaq as ever since the war it had been the only Service secondary school on the island and, although run entirely by the Navy, it catered for the children of parents of all three Services as well as Government civilians. Its only effects were to take away the Headmaster, Instructor Captain Malkin, to become a full time administrator (as Officer in Charge, Service Children's Schools, Malta, Naples and Tripoli), replacing him by an Instructor Commander (myself), and to change the name from Royal Naval School to Service Children's School.

The rest is comparatively recent history, but mention should perhaps be made of a little hiccup during the Christmas holiday 1971 when, a few days before term was due to start, it was announced that all Service dependants were to leave Malta within two weeks and the schools would not reopen. I can perhaps leave the effects of this short notice closure to your imagination (they were described in the 1973 magazine), but we certainly did go home and the school was reduced to an empty shell in Malta, a vast number of ominously rattling packing cases at Bicester, several large boxes of documents at Eltham and a staff, still technically on the strength but dispersed all over the UK, somewhat plaintively enquiring what was to happen to them next. Pupils were scattered to the four winds and regrettably there was little we could do to help them.