Raising aspirations within school communities: the Learning Catalysts project

This article accounts for a project that rests on a collaboration between the Leadership for Learning group at the Faculty of Education and the county council in King's Lynn and West Norfolk to address a concern regarding the low aspirations in the community. At the heart of the project was the development of a cadre of ‘Learning Catalysts’ who work with schools and with parents to raise aspirations. The project pursued questions such as: What do we really understand about the way aspirations are shaped and play out in the interface of school and community? How can we gain a deeper insight into the cultures of families and how aspirations about occupational and social identities affect children's performance in school? Of central interest too was the way in which people without formal status in their institutions were able to assume leadership roles. The tension between leadership activity in the community setting and leadership within the formal hierarchies of schools was to prove both a source of data and a continuing challenge.