As the educational phenomenon the school failures have been accompanying students right from the moment when the school was established as an educational institution. In the Polish pedagogical literature the first attempts of description of this phenomenon are found in works of Helena Radlińska et al. who described reasons of the school successes and failures. It is from that moment on when we can see the scientific character of these issues. The next decades (till the end of the twentieth century) proved that the phenomenon of school failures, even though not named, remained “pedagogical problem number one” of the Polish and world educational system. It is a universal issue which appears in every country of a global character. This paper is meant to present the theoretical aspects of the school failure phenomenon. It recalls the terminological findings, and works out classifications.