First published in 1998. The Education Reform Act of 1988 introduced into schools in England and Wales a range of major reforms, including the National Curriculum, the transfer of certain key powers and responsibilities from LEAs to schools and new and altogether more comprehensive procedures for the monitoring of school performance. Offering a view as to whether or not the OFSTED inspection process will actually secure 'improvement through inspection' is not the purpose of this publication. The Secondary Whole-School Audit has been produced in response to OFSTED's explicit inspection criteria which provide schools in England and Wales, for the first time in their history, with clear direction and standards against which they can continuously judge current strengths and weaknesses and review developmental targets.