Leading & Managing, Vol. 18, No. 2, 2012, pp. 1-33 Hitting the Bullseye of School Improvement: The IDEAS Project at work in a successful school system )5$1. &52:7+(5 University of Southern Queensland Email: crowthef@usq.edu.au '2527+< $1'5(:6 University of Southern Queensland Email: dorothy.andrews@usq.edu.au $//$1 025*$1 Allan Morgan Consulting Pty Ltd Email: almorgan@live.com.au 6+,5/(< 2ｷ1(,// University of Southern Queensland Email: oneills@usq.edu.au ABSTRACT: Many comprehensive approaches to successful school improvement have emerged over the past decade, thus ensuring that school improvement need no longer be a ‘hit and miss’ affair. But the reconceptualisation of successful organisational improvement in educational contexts nevertheless remains seriously unfinished business. It is this ‘unfinished business’ that this article reports on. It does so by describing the contributory processes, and outcomes, associated with a ‘new paradigm’ (or ‘Fourth Way’) educational improvement project (the IDEAS Project) at work in schools in a highly successful school system – Sydney Catholic Education Office. The research looks in particular at schools in Sydney CEO that achieved substantial growth in NAPLAN results in the period 2006-2010. It is concluded from analysis of the experiences of the schools in question that sustained success in student achievement requires ‘multiple leadership sources’, encompassing system, school and developmental project leadership constructs and processes. The concluding section of the article makes use of a well-known literary device – metaphor – to capture and communicate the essential findings of the research. Specifically, the field of