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“His first lesson of the day was with me, and I remember him telling me that his chair was broken and that he wanted to change it.”

While Borg was at his PE lesson, Gauci was making a coffee in the staff room and watching the students play on the school ground. She said she passed a comment to her colleagues that the goalpost was about to fall, as it so often did.

“It was a longstanding problem and teachers had flagged it to the headmaster but our complaints fell on deaf ears,” she recounted. “Everyone knew about it and children would even hang onto the goalpost for fun.”

As Gauci was in the staff room, she saw children surrounding the PE teacher in a state a panic and the goalpost on the ground, but she realised something was off because it hadn’t made its usual banging noise.

“I opened the window and children were shouting out ‘Il-Panda’ but I didn’t know it was Adrian’s nickname,” she said.

“When I found out what happened, I was so angry because it was the result of pure carelessness. It was so avoidable – the school didn’t need to issue a tender or anything; they just needed to fix the goalpost to the ground and in fact they fixed it the day after Adrian died.”

“They only saw the light after this tragedy, because we only learn lessons when someone dies. It’s a massive shame and a sign of collective indifference.”

A board of inquiry found that the incident could have been avoided but couldn’t identify anyone who was directly responsible, a result that angered Gauci. She was also critical of the way the headmaster landed a job at the Education Department after the tragedy, warning that “the teachers told him what the problem was but he just didn’t pay attention”.

Gauci, who still has Adrian’s santa at home, remembers him as a “quiet, well-educated and pleasant boy”.

“He was an angel and a joy to teach,” she said.

“I was so angry when I saw what Daniel Attard said, it’s worse than dirty. Leave the poor family alone. He died at school, a place he should have been safe at, and now he’s using his death for political gain. It was such a cruel attack and he’s not going to gain any political mileage out of it.”

Attard, who said he decided to speak out after speaking to Borg’s father, accused the PN government of the day of blocking attempts to rename a street in Santa Venera in his honour “to ensure the case is buried for good”.

Asked whether she believes a street should be named for him, Gauci said she would be fine with that but would rather an entire school is named in his honour.

“He is a symbol of the incompetence of the entire system. If we are going to celebrate him, let’s celebrate him in a place where young people should thrive. He is a symbol of something that should have been done but that no one took care of it. He’s a martyr of the system and I get angry whenever it think about what happened.”

Cover photo: From left: Daniel Attard, Adrian Borg, Sandra Gauci

Do you think Malta should honour the memory of Adrian Borg by naming a school or a street after him?