Firstly this study reviews the literature associated with change in order to get an overall picture of the challenges facing principals, teachers, students and all concerned with second level schools in Ireland today. The nineties are looked upon as a period of great innovation in Irish second level education. This study will focus on one particular change in the nineties, namely the mainstreaming of the Transition Year Programme in 1994. Six different second level schools in the researchers immediate locality were chosen in order to investigate and evaluate the Transition Year Programme in the light of the aims set out by the Department of Education (1993). In order to elicit information about the Transition Year Programmes in the six chosen schools, this broad study firstly surveyed the co-ordinators in each school by questionnaire. Five teachers from each school were then surveyed by questionnaire. Those teachers were selected from different subject areas. A random sample of twenty students was taken from each school and also surveyed by questionnaire. Finally the principals from each of the six schools were interviewed and the interviews were recorded on tape in an effort to establish what lessons about schools leadership and innovation can be learned from the Transition Year Programme. A summary of the major findings of this study are reported in chapter six.