Its main intention was to discover what the schools'successes were,how they had achieved them, those strategies that had been tried but had not worked, and the continuing challenges of the schools. Two government "neighborhood"secondary schools in Singapore-Queensway and xinmin were chosen to take part in the study by the Ministry of Education, largely on the basis of their outstanding performance in the value-added performance tables, published in Singapore since 1992. With below average academic intakes, both schools had made significant improvements, particularly in their 0 level results and in the numbers of pupils going on to post-secondary school education. For example, at Queensway the number of students graduating with a minimum number of three "0" level passes in the Express stream improved from 95 percent in 1990 to 100 percent in 1995, and for a minimum of five "0" level passes from 66 percent in 1990 to 91 percent in 1994. By 1994, 96 percent were going on to some form of post-secondary school education, the majority of them to the polytechnics. Even when the new principals took over the schools, then the academic results were relatively goo However, what distinguished them from other similar schools were the improvements that were subsequently achieved.