Organisational Theory

I do view my school as an organisation but a special organisation. It contains structure - in Cath. Ed. there is the Bishop, Director, school board and Principal that form the top structure of a school. The school's mission statement and motto lend it to its purpose and underpins the educational philosophy. There are clients that are there to 'get' something from us - the students intrinsically and the community (including families), workplace extrinsically. They all have an interest in the school organisation. Each person's job is defined and outlined for requirements and there are checks in place to ensure this is happening. There are measurable outputs - e.g. syllabus/work program documents, unit plans, school policies and so forth, this is done through various connections within the organisation some whole school some are selective participants meaning collaboration and power and cultural aspects are at work. There are reviews in place and an action plan to implement what is lacking/changing/refining. Financial issues are there from year to year and managed from the top. I found myself agreeing with Bennett's view of school effectiveness and improvment through structure, power and culture (2001).

As stated in the first line, schools are a special sort of organisation and even stated in Bennett (2001) and Beare (1990) adaptations to the organisational theory needs or does occur for the principles to work effectively in a school. One aspect of this is that we are working with a hostile participant in the student, they are made to be there and if you are made to do anything quite often this starts a negative feeling. I liked the idea that was mentioned in the forums of everyone thinks they know a school and how it works or should work because they have all been there. But there is little awareness of how the school changes in response to new concepts/educational theories/syllabus materials. I think the idea of people making the policies being out of date applies to the Government especially, looking to our Ministers of Education there are few and far between that have education degrees in any area and yet they are making decisions for all our schools effectively. This needs to be reviewed - do people in organisations have to keep up to date with qualifications or courses?

Change is always occuring and often not at the school level - we are finding little consultation with the 'coal-face' of teaching as to the teaching and learning processes and the changes expected at various times. I also liked how we aren't about teaching anymore we have so many other facets to include that the teaching often gets left behind, lets teach about bullying, about weight and self-esteem, about values. Where is the teaching for academic and they wonder why students' literacy and numeracy is dropping - look at how much time is actually spent teaching these days and see. So I think it should be the case that schools are seen as a different organisation we are dealing with a multi-faceted area that is juggling a bombardment of extras.

I do understand that some organisations are like this in that they have their shareholders, their clients who don't always want help or the help the organisation can provide but schools are different.