Sometimes a booked course stops being a booked course. The school pauses arrivals, the start date moves, the confirmation stops arriving — and the questions are immediate and practical: does my course still exist, what happens to the money I paid, and can anyone teach me in Malta next week. We cannot answer for anybody else’s school. We can tell you what to ask them, and we can take over the course and the accommodation — several agents have asked us to do exactly that in the last few days, and their students are already in class.
First, the two things that are time-sensitive
Everything else can wait a day. These cannot.
- Ask your school, in writing, for the status of your booking. Email rather than phone, so you have a record. Ask three specific things: is my course running on the dates booked, is my accommodation held, and what is the refund position if it is not.
- Check what your payment method gives you. A card payment, a bank transfer and an agent invoice carry very different protections, and the useful window on some of them is measured in weeks, not months. Your bank or card issuer will tell you what applies to yours.
Then, before you cancel anything
- Do not cancel flights until you have an alternative. If another school can take you on the same dates, your flights are the one part of the trip that does not need re-arranging at all.
- Talk to your agent first if you booked through one. They are usually handling several students at once and may already have a route sorted.
- Ask whether your visa is affected. If a visa was issued on the basis of an acceptance letter from a specific school, changing school is not simply a matter of booking a different course. It is manageable, but it has to be handled deliberately — see below.
What IH Malta can do
We are an English language school in St Julian’s, licensed by the ELT Council of Malta and part of the International House World Organisation since 2003. We have places, beds and teachers now.
| What you need | What we have |
|---|---|
| A course starting now | General English and Intensive English start every Monday, all year |
| Exam preparation | Cambridge and IELTS preparation courses |
| Somewhere to live | Residence and host family places, including immediate arrivals |
| Paperwork for a visa | Acceptance letters and the documents a change of school needs |
| Someone to deal with an agent | Direct contact for agents handling several students at once |
Our prices are published in full on the Prices page and in the price list on our Documents page. Nothing is quoted differently to somebody who arrives in a hurry.
On money, plainly
If you have already paid another school, you may be waiting on a refund that has not arrived and may not arrive quickly. We are willing to be flexible about that: staged payments, a later payment date, terms set against your situation rather than against a standard invoice. Ask us. It is a conversation, not a form, and it is one we have had several times this week already.
We would rather have a student in class on Monday and settle the arithmetic afterwards than lose a term to a payment schedule.
For agents
Several agencies have contacted us directly in the past few days, and we have placed their students. If you are re-routing a group, or a handful of individuals with different start dates and different accommodation needs, send us the whole list rather than one student at a time — it is faster for everyone, and we can hold places while you confirm with families.
We can provide the acceptance letters, invoices and confirmations your visa files need, and we can work to the commission arrangements you already have in place.
If a visa is involved
This is the part that most often goes wrong when a student changes school in a hurry, so it is worth stating plainly. If your visa or visa application rests on documents from the original school, you will need equivalent documents from the new one, and in some cases the application has to be updated rather than simply carried over. Tell us in your first message that a visa is involved, and we will start there rather than with the course booking.
Questions we are being asked this week
My school has paused new arrivals. What happens to my booking? That is between you, the school you booked with, and your agent or card issuer if a refund is involved. Ask the school in writing for the status of both the course and the accommodation, and keep the reply. We are not in a position to speak for another school, and we would not want to guess.
Will I get my money back? It depends on that school’s position and on how you paid, so we cannot say. What we can do is make sure the wait does not also cost you the course — see the note on flexible terms above.
Can I start a course in Malta this week? Usually yes. General English and Intensive English start every Monday, and we can often arrange accommodation for an immediate arrival. Send us your dates and your level.
I have already flown to Malta. What now? Contact us today. Accommodation is the urgent part; the course can be sorted the same day.
Do I have to start again from the beginning? No. We place you by level, using a placement test if you have not been assessed recently, so you continue from where you actually are rather than from where a form says you are.
Can you take a whole group? Yes, and we would rather hear about the group as a group. Send the list.
Talk to us
The fastest routes are WhatsApp and the message form on our contact page. Tell us your dates, your level if you know it, whether you need accommodation and whether a visa is involved — that is enough for us to come back with something concrete.
Plans can change. What you wanted out of them does not have to.