Following its election in 1992 the state Liberal-National coalition government in Victoria initiated a broad re-organisation of government schools by adopting a model of self-management under the title of 'Schools of the Future'. This state government initiative handed over substantial responsibilities to schools and their communities in 1993. The Curriculum and Standards Framework which established learning outcomes for all students P-10 was seen as a key responsibility for Schools of the Future. This study seeks to amplify the ways in which centrally determined and mandated policy is mediated and recontextualised by teachers who operate within local contexts which are informed and shaped by wider historical, current and personal contexts. The study is by a long-serving member of the school teaching staff. The focus of the research is the response teachers made to the centrally mandated curriculum change which was the Curriculum and Standards Framework. This thesis reports the findings of a twenty month study of secondary school teachers and the ways in which they displayed agency at a time when their working conditions were seen by many of them to be under attack by the State Government. The contexts which existed prior to and at the time of the mandated changes are shown to have shaped stances in the teachers which led them to question central policy mandates. They employed a variety of agentic tactics to maintain a focus on meeting the needs of their students and retaining what they considered to be their best teaching practices. The study provides evidence that resistance to change is far more subtle than the view of people being mindlessly resistant. The teachers' resistance was intelligent, selective, flexible and adaptive. This study also illustrates how local practitioners engage with centrally mandated change and shape it in ways which they consider best serves local interests.