ABSTRACT
Many of the schools we visited during this study had undergone consider able change. Some of those had undergone radical change. A number of those we studied in detail as case studies had been transformed from being schools that were incapable of change and ineffective (certainly in simple process and output terms) to those that were capable of change and effective. This change represents a transformation. While a number of themes emerged from the data, a key determinant, if not the key factor in accelerating the performance of schools, appeared to be the quality of the leadership in the schools. Often, and especially so in the initiation of the improvement journey, that leadership was embodied in the ex officio leader, the headteacher.
