A number of primary schools do not have an assistant head nor enough support staff to assist headteachers with the daily running of the school, Lydia Chetcuti, head of Kalkara primary, said yesterday.
How can a school with 200 students manage without an assistant head? If you do not delegate, you disintegrate, she argued.
Ms Chetcuti was speaking during the second day of a conference organised by the Malta Union of Teachers for school administrators on the theme "Heads of School at Work".
The conference marking Teacher's Day, which falls today, was held at the Howard Johnson Diplomat Hotel in Sliema and started on Friday afternoon.
There are other areas that needed to be tackled at primary level. One of these was that there is only one guidance teacher for primary schools. If this teacher received only one complaint a year there would be over 70 cases to tackle.
Ms Chetcuti noted the greater co-ordination was needed between the Education Division and the National Curriculum section. To illustrate her point, she said that while her school had planned activities for October 14 to mark the European Day of Parents in Schools, the curriculum section had scheduled a meeting for that same day.
The school sent an e-mail to see why this had happened but got no reply.
Most headteachers had a open door policy for their staff as well as for parents. Around five out of 150 schools did not go by this policy.
"You would not dream of closing your door, even during breaks. Parents come in not only to talk about the problems of their children but also about their own problems".
Mansueto Zerafa, head of the St George Primary B, Qormi, highlighted the importance of roping in the energy and expertise of the people in the neighbourhood to lend a hand in making the school a better place for students.
Mr Zerafa said that to encourage students to take up reading, he had invited a retired Maltese actor to read stories to classes and an English resident to read to older students to help them get the hang of spoken English.
Speaking about building and maintaining a professional school team, Anthony Saliba, headmaster at St Edward's College, said he felt that every teacher should have a critical friend who would observe and assist him to learn communication and management skills.
St Edward's has 71 teachers, four of whom are heads of sections, and a deputy headmaster.
"The headmaster should make his presence felt throughout the school in order to inspire and encourage teachers to relate to each other and to their students.
"The best way to build a team is to show each member of the staff how to carry their responsibility on a personal as well as on a collective level".
Other speakers yesterday included Anita Galea, from St Martin's College; Fr Charles Mallia, St Elias College; Sr Johanna Gatt, St Monica School, Mosta, and Education Minister Louis Galea.