Headship in the primary school : a survey among heads of primary schools in Malta

Abstract

Contemporary debate on the value of schools and schooling can be phrased as “Do schools make a difference?” Through this debate, which concentrates mainly on the use that both learners as well as teaching and administrative staff make of their schooling experience, a number of criteria, which do in fact make one school more effective than another, have been identified. One important factor which has been clearly identified by various researchers (Rutter et al, 1979; Glatter, 1981; Mortimer et al., 1986; Reynolds, 1985; Hopkins, 1987) has been the school leadership within the school. The Head of School’s role within the structure of the school has then been identified as crucial in establishing the ethos of the school. In short It could be said that an effective head of school promotes his own spirit and effectiveness throughout all spheres of the school. We then tend to agree with HMI (1982) report which categorically states that: “There is widespread support for the view that the most significant factor is the quality of leadership provided by the head”. Aims: Bearing this in mind we have endeavoured to carry out a research among Heads of Primary Schools in Malta thus trying to : 1. Establish the social strata from which heads originate and in which they can be at present classified ; 2. Identify the Heads’ personal views on themselves and on the role they are asked to undertake within the schools ; 3. Identify some issues which Heads feel that the Maltese Educational System needs to address in its effort to focus on development ; 4. Produce a profile of the typical Maltese Head of Primary School. Approach: In conducting this research we relied on a local research (Bezzina, 1988) recently carried out among a small number of Heads of Primary Schools and on Bernbaum (1976) who carried out a study among over 300 English Headteachers from Grammar and Comprehensive Schools. Bezzina carried out an ethnographic study, the first of its kind in Malta, among twelve Heads of Primary Schools by continuously observing their full performance for ten consecutive schooldays each. This observational study utilised a wide-ranging approach whereby the researcher spent full days at the schools, observing, noting down, discussing and giving questionnaires. Bernbaum, in his study among Headteachers in English Secondary schools relied mainly on a questionnaire sent to headteachers as well as interviews to one school inspector from each LEA and to a selected number of headteachers. It would have been ideal if we had adopted an approach similar to the one utilised by both above researchers, hence combining both observational and data gathering perspectives. However, since both of us could not be released from our place of work for long periods of time, it was decided that the approach best suited the circumstances was the questionnaire type of approach. [...]