A TYPOLOGY of SCHOOL CULTURES (Stoll & Fink 1996)

Moving

• ·         boosting pupils’ progress and development
• ·         working together to respond to changing context
• ·         know where they’re going and having the will and skill to get there
• ·         possess norms of improving schools

Cruising 

•       appear to be effective
• ·         usually in more affluent areas
• ·         pupils achieve in spite of teaching quality
• ·         not preparing pupils for changing world
• ·         possess powerful norms that inhibit change31

Strolling

• ·         neither particularly effective nor ineffective
• ·         moving at inadequate rate to cope with pace of change
• ·         meandering into future to pupils’ detriment
• ·         ill-defined and sometimes conflicting aims inhibit improvement

Struggling

• ·         ineffective and they know it
• ·         expend considerable energy to improve
• ·         unproductive ‘thrashing about’
• ·        will ultimately succeed because have the will, if not the skill
• ·         often identified as ‘failing’, which is demotivational

Sinking

• ·         ineffective: norms of isolation, blame, self reliance and loss of faith
• ·         powerfully inhibit improvement
• ·         staff unable to change
• ·         often in deprived areas where they blame parenting or unprepared children
• ·         need dramatic action and significant support.