Understanding School Ethos
School ethos refers to the character, atmosphere and values that shape a school's environment and influence how students learn and achieve. It's like the personality of a school that affects everyone who studies or works there.
Key Definitions:
- School Ethos: The distinctive character, spirit and culture of a school that influences behaviour, relationships and learning.
- Achievement: The level of success students reach in their academic work and personal development.
- School Culture: The shared beliefs, values, customs and behaviours that exist within a school.
🏫 Components of School Ethos
A school's ethos is made up of several key elements:
- The school's stated values and mission
- Leadership style and priorities
- Quality of relationships between staff and students
- Approach to discipline and behaviour management
- Physical environment and facilities
- Teaching methods and curriculum focus
📈 How Ethos Affects Achievement
School ethos can impact student achievement through:
- Creating a positive or negative learning environment
- Setting high or low expectations for students
- Influencing student motivation and engagement
- Affecting teacher morale and commitment
- Shaping peer culture and attitudes to learning
Types of School Cultures and Their Impact
Research has identified different types of school cultures that can significantly influence student achievement. Understanding these can help explain why some schools are more effective than others at helping students succeed.
🚀 High-Performing Culture
Features include:
- Clear academic focus
- High expectations for all
- Regular celebration of achievement
- Strong leadership
- Collaborative teaching
Students typically achieve above average results regardless of background.
📝 Caring Culture
Features include:
- Focus on wellbeing
- Strong pastoral support
- Inclusive approach
- Valuing of all abilities
- Supportive relationships
Can boost achievement of vulnerable students but may not push high achievers.
👎 Toxic Culture
Features include:
- Low expectations
- Poor discipline
- Blame culture
- Weak leadership
- Staff divisions
Often leads to underachievement across all student groups.
Teacher Expectations and the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
One of the most powerful aspects of school ethos is how teacher expectations can shape student achievement. This works through what sociologists call the 'self-fulfilling prophecy'.
The Rosenthal and Jacobson Study (1968)
In their famous 'Pygmalion in the Classroom' experiment, researchers told teachers that certain randomly selected students were likely to show significant academic improvement. Despite these students being no different from others, they actually did show greater improvement simply because teachers expected them to. This demonstrated how powerful teacher expectations can be in shaping student achievement.
The self-fulfilling prophecy in education works through several stages:
- Teachers form expectations about students (often based on first impressions, previous performance, behaviour, social class, ethnicity or gender)
- Teachers treat students differently based on these expectations (giving more attention, harder work and more feedback to those they expect to do well)
- Students begin to notice this differential treatment
- Students start to behave in ways that confirm the teacher's expectations
- The original expectation becomes 'true' - high-expectation students achieve more, low-expectation students achieve less
Streaming, Setting and Labelling
How schools organise students can have a significant impact on achievement and is an important part of school ethos.
👥 Streaming and Setting
Streaming places students in the same ability group for all subjects.
Setting groups students by ability for specific subjects.
Research shows these practices can:
- Benefit higher-ability students
- Often disadvantage lower-ability students
- Reinforce social inequalities (working-class and some minority ethnic students are often over-represented in lower streams)
- Create 'self-fulfilling prophecies' where students perform at the level expected of their group
🏷 Labelling Theory
Developed by sociologists like Howard Becker, labelling theory explains how students can become 'trapped' by the labels given to them:
- Teachers label students as 'bright', 'average' or 'troublemakers'
- Students begin to see themselves through these labels
- They form 'self-concepts' based on these labels
- Their behaviour and achievement start to match the label
- This can lead to 'status frustration' for negatively labelled students
- Some may join 'anti-school subcultures' as a result
Effective School Ethos: What Works?
Research into effective schools has identified key features of school ethos that promote high achievement for all students:
- Strong, purposeful leadership - clear vision and high expectations
- Shared goals and values - staff and students understand what the school stands for
- Positive learning environment - orderly, work-focused atmosphere
- High expectations for all - belief that every student can succeed
- Consistent monitoring of progress - regular assessment and feedback
- Student rights and responsibilities - students feel valued and involved
- Home-school partnership - parents engaged in supporting learning
- Staff development - continuous professional learning
Case Study: London Challenge
The London Challenge (2003-2011) transformed London schools from some of England's worst-performing to its best. Key to this success was changing school ethos through:
- Setting high expectations for all students regardless of background
- Creating a culture of 'no excuses' for underachievement
- Developing strong leadership teams
- Sharing best practices between schools
- Focusing on data-driven improvement
- Building teacher confidence and skills
The results were dramatic: London schools now outperform the rest of England, with disadvantaged students achieving particularly well compared to similar students elsewhere.
Anti-School Subcultures
When school ethos fails to engage certain groups of students, they may form what sociologists call 'anti-school subcultures' - groups that reject the school's values and develop their own alternative status system.
Paul Willis's study 'Learning to Labour' (1977) showed how working-class boys ('the lads') developed an anti-school culture that valued:
- Having a laugh and disrupting lessons
- Rejecting academic work as 'not masculine'
- Valuing practical rather than theoretical knowledge
- Challenging teacher authority
These subcultures develop partly as a response to negative labelling and low expectations, but ironically often lead to the very underachievement that was predicted - another example of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Conclusion: The Importance of School Ethos
School ethos matters enormously for student achievement. Schools with positive, inclusive ethos that maintain high expectations for all students tend to produce better results across all social groups. Understanding how ethos works helps explain why some schools are more effective than others and why some students achieve more than others, even when they have similar abilities.
The good news is that school ethos can be changed and improved. Many schools have transformed their results by focusing on creating a positive learning culture with high expectations for everyone.