ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the school will first be seen as an organization, recognizably British in its structure but with some, perhaps increasing, links with the world around it. Then, the chapter describes the characteristically different cultures of different school types. Schools clearly can be analysed as organizations, though it must be remembered that this concept is, in Weber's terminology, an ideal type that is, a hypothetically concrete construct with the aim of analysing a particular set of social behaviour. The way in which the British educational system is organized is very largely determined by its historical growth. Within the British primary schools there are two main traditions at work, which may be called in the terms of common usage the traditional and the progressive, each of which generates very different school cultures. In addition, there is the rather different culture specific to the independent preparatory schools that cater for a somewhat similar age group.
