ABSTRACT
Until the early 1990s, the pursuit of quality in schools was implicit in such activities as curriculum development, rather than explicit in programmes for school improvement. I remember, though, that I first heard the Q-word when I visited an English comprehensive school in 1982 to learn about a curriculum review that had been launched by the new principal. He told me that he was hoping the staff committee would come up with a ‘quality product’. From his careful preparation and seriousness of purpose, I took it he meant a document that would, in important ways, be good for the school and its students. But to use ‘quality’ in this way seemed to have interesting implications, while the term ‘product’ struck me as more appropriate to business than education.
