Malta’s first in-school esports training programme extended for a second year

St Joseph Mater Boni Consilii School, Paola, has extended for a second year its agreement with Level Academy, to organise at the school Malta’s first esports training programme to be held within the national curriculum framework.

During its inaugural academic year, the bespoke educational programme engaged 48 students in a multi-skill development approach across three terms.

At the closing ceremony for the first programme, all participants received a certificate of completion and a commemorative medal.

This year’s esports training programme will have new sessions complementing the tested educational framework. The new sessions will help students develop refocusing strategies; plan for distractions; enhance teamwork; assess and compare performance using video analysis; design and implement development plans; work with design software for branding; adopt positive thinking strategies; and sustain focus on the task at hand.

The new training blocks come in addition to five thematic sessions from the first programme held last year, which was founded on the following major themes: introduction to esports; self-evaluation; setting goals; effective communication; and content creation and streaming via different platforms. During the programme, participants will learn the differences and similarities between esports and conventional sports and will then acquire self-evaluation methods to understand how they can identify their strengths and weaknesses. This approach is foundational for reflecting on individual areas of self-improvement.

Following this, students will learn about the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) goal-setting tool, which reveals the significance of measurability to enable the youth to record and analyse their learning progress. Eventually, students will learn practical communication skills, focusing on analysing their speech to reach communicative effectiveness. The last session will centre around different types of content creation with specific attention to various communication platforms and the formats these versatile media require.

St Joseph Mater Boni Consilii School head Kenneth Vella said that while the traditional curriculum ensures that students learn the most fundamental skills needed for their life-long learning, the knowledge that progressive businesses such as Level Academy can deliver to schooling is indispensable.

“They bring different perspectives, elevated levels of engagement and a lot of fun to the classroom, which helps students in becoming better professionals and happier individuals in their future as adults,” he said. “Through this agreement, we are not reducing the amount of time dedicated to other subjects and we are not encouraging children to play esports at the expense of other activities. We are providing them with essential information about what is esports in the context of a constantly changing world,” he added.

We are not reducing the amount of time dedicated to other subjects– School head Kenneth Vella

Kevin Spiteri, founder and director of Level Academy, said: “Life has changed swiftly. In the matter of a decade, recent skills requirements for the youth to help them prosper in the digital world have become pressure on their shoulders. They are digital natives, but they need the necessary skills to help them navigate the rapidly developing world.

“As we prepare to run the training programme at St Joseph Mater Boni Consilii for another scholastic year, we are committed to building upon the strengths of the first programme, while continuing to focus on the soft transferable and digital skills that can be imparted through the context of esports.”

Level Academy co-founder Keith Falzon added: “With digitalisation comes the increased need for quality content. Any business in any industry now needs to produce quality content to help clients understand their products, services and the values they represent. These sessions have ensured that the youth can identify the skills they need to improve, communicate effectively and produce content that ensures the message is clear. We hope that our educational material contributes to bridging the skills gap between academia and the labour market, which is a topic that has been widely discussed in the local business landscape.”

For more information, visit levelacademy.com.mt.