Kenneth Vella, 38, is the first and only headmaster heading a girls’ Church school in Malta. At St Joseph primary and lower secondary school, in Paola, he is surrounded by 270 girl students, a staff of 32 women and eight nuns in the adjacent convent. How does it feel to be a lone man among women?

“After 16 years working in a boys’ school, this was a big change,” he laughs. He applied for the post not because he was unhappy at De La Salle, where he was an assistant head, but because he felt it was time for a “new challenge”.

He was quite surprised when, after a rigorous interview, he was chosen.

For more than 100 years, until 2009, the school was headed by a sister of St Joseph. Sister Bernadette Galea, the Provincial Superior, explained that lack of vocations made this very difficult.

“Our heads are now lay people. Vocations are a problem all over Europe these days,” she said, explaining that, despite this, they did their utmost to ensure that the presence of nuns was still felt in the school.

When recruiting, the board of directors did not look at the gender, she said. With a Master’s degree in Church school leadership, Mr Vella was the ideal choice.

“Mr Vella performed best at the interview and we are very happy because he is well-loved and admired by the parents and the children.”

The parents were initially apprehensive about the choice but were immediately won over by his innovative style.

“He’s young and he’s brought with him a lot of fresh ideas,” said parent Josianne Bonnici.

“In the beginning, it was a bit of a surprise. You know how it is, the school never had a headmaster before,” said mum Anne Marie Grima.

Children should have both mother figures and father figures as teachers

“But we are now very happy that it has made no difference whatsoever in the running of the school. Actually, perhaps in the long run, it will be good for the children to have a male presence in the school,” she added.

Mr Vella is an advocate of this. He would like to see more male teachers, especially at primary level.

“Education should reflect society so children should have both mother figures and father figures as teachers,” he said.

He believes that fewer men are attracted to primary-level teaching because of psychological inhibitions.

“There is this idea that men are not caring enough to be with younger children. It’s all in the mind,” he said, going on to recall his Year 4 and Year 5 male teachers who were a role model for him and inspired him to take up teaching.

As a government-educated student himself, he can clearly see the differences between Church and State schools, although both have dedicated teachers.

Government schools certainly have the best resources, he said, but those owned by the Church had the “ethos and traditions”.

“All Church schools are steeped in history and, although they move on with the times, the founder’s values are always passed on from one student generation to the next,” he said. It is this ethos that makes every Church school different.

Lay headmistresses and headmasters make it a point that this is not lost.

“The life of Saint Emilie de Vialar is always a reference point in our school and the nuns are always present to ensure the ethos is passed on,” he says.

At lunch assembly, the previously rowdy crowd of girls now pray in angelic voices, asking St Emilie to protect them.

Aged between four and 12, the students then follow their headmaster’s instructions and quietly go to their classrooms.

When the end-of-school bell rings at 1.30pm, they see him again, at the door, as he ushers them out, calling each and every girl by her name and taking the time to talk to the parents.

“See you tomorrow, Mr Vella,” the girls tell him affectionately.