Eleven years ago when Rita Fitzgerald took over as principal of Enniscorthy CBS, Co Wexford, she found a top down management structure. Hardly suprising, you might say. That's how most schools - and indeed many businesses - are run.

Three years into the job Fitzgerald realised that things had to change. "We needed to take a different approach to the management of the school and its development," she recalls. "Our aim was and is to improve the school and provide a quality education." What was required, she decided, was a collaborative approach, in line with modern management techniques. "Team work is now considered the best way forward," she explains. "Many brains are better than one." It's the teachers who set the tone and ethos of a school, she believes. "You can't be successful unless they are involved."

Fitzgerald sought the help of Sister Oonagh Collins of the Marino Institute of Education who came in as a facilitator and worked with staff to examine all aspects of school life. "We looked at our history and ethos, our mission statement, our values and aspirations. We looked at the curriculum and a variety of school issues. We identified where we wanted to be in five years time and the steps that needed to be taken to get there."

Initially the planning process consisted of huge staff meetings which quickly proved unwieldy. As a result, English teacher Tony Britton was appointed co-ordinator of the school plan and a steering committee was put in place. This committee divided staff into small working groups which worked with the facilitator on specific issues and reported back to the steering committee. The school plan which developed from all of this is a constantly evolving document with an extremely positive tone. This positive tone is vital. "It's not a fudging," Britton asserts, "it's simply a more positive way of encouraging people to face challenges." Take discipline for example. By accentuating the positive you can then go about working on the negatives, he explains.

Following on from the school plan, a number of committees have been established including committees on pastoral care, the curriculum and staff development. "There's a great openess now and we're relying on our own resources to a much greater extent," Fitzgerald, who is the only female principal of an all-boys school, notes.

All the partners involved in the school - staff, trustees, the board of management, students and parents - were consulted along the way. "The only reason we were working on a school plan was to improve the school," she says. "We weren't just writing a document, we realised that the process - that is, how we arrived at decisions as a team - was more important than the end results." A significant aspect of the process, she stresses, is that it is based on mutual respect. "It's a depersonalised system which is excellent." The use of a facilitator was essential, Fitzgerald believes. `It was the vital ingredient in the success of the plan. The facilitator was seen as being impartial which meant that everyone felt they could have their say and all aspects of school life - including areas of difficulty which staff were currently experiencing - could be examined." Importantly, she says "the school plan identifies areas of responsibility and clarifies them. It gives you a focus and makes you evaluate your work".

Fitzgerald, though, admits to the difficulties involved. "The school plan challenges you to examine your school in minute detail," she warns. "If you don't want to see the reality don't do it. If the board of management and the principal aren't behind it, it won't work. You have to be able to live with the pain of it. Everyone's position is discussed and you could get cold feet if you didn't believe in your own role."

Nonetheless, the benefits are enormous, she says. "I don't see how you can run a school any other way nowadays. The real plus is that everyone can have a say in the way the school is going." However, Fitzgerald advises against a new principal embarking immediately on school planning. "You need to be two or three years in a school first," she says.