Good organisations, including good schools, continually seek to maintain or improve their quality. However, what we mean by quality changes over time in response to changes in society. Definitions of educational quality are value-laden and dependent on contextual factors. Some of the most common conceptions of quality include:

• exceptional achievement;
• value for money in terms of a cost-effective relationship between inputs and outputs;
• value-adding by enhancing in ways not always easily measurable the knowledge and skills of students, thus empowering them as fully-rounded human beings; and
• effectiveness in meeting national, regional, social or other goals, and in particular achieving the institution’s special and distinctive goals.

Another helpful guide to determining quality is to look for evidence of it under the broad headings: Resources; Routines; Results; Relationships.

Quality should be expressed in the declared aims and policies of the school or other bodies, including their special goals. In the case of schools, for example, the differences between them must be respected, even to the point where ‘quality’ can be interpreted differently in different schools. Quality is not something that simply happens because people are well intentioned. Quality has to be set as a goal, worked hard for and managed intelligently and carefully.