ABSTRACT
A school is an organisation and, like other organisations, is made up of a clearly defined hierarchy of statuses. The variety of schools in Britain is immense. Two-thirds of the country's secondary schools are now officially comprehensive and are intended to bring together all the normal neighbourhood children under one roof, offering them there the widest educational opportunities that the available money can buy. The effects of repressive schooling can be seen in the children's creative work; attempts to fit in with the system produce stacks of dull, neatly written and correctly spelled essays, with cross-repetition of set phrases. Art work, too, tends to be stereotyped, as children learn which style gains the highest marks. School uniform is often just out of fashion and teenagers can find it humiliating to be seen in it. The formal organisation of any educational institution depends upon the goals for which that institution is supposed to be aiming.
