ABSTRACT
The publication on which this chapter is based developed from a Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) commission. The International School Effectiveness and Improvement Centre at the Institute of Education was asked to undertake a series of case studies of schools which, having failed their inspection, managed to turn themselves around. Our task was to uncover how they had done so. Alma Harris and I immersed ourselves in the records of the history of the inspection and its aftermath and then interviewed staff, students, parents and the chair of governors. We went to the school with some trepidation—unsure as to how keen the staff who had undergone such a traumatic experience would be on the investigation. We need not have worried.
