This paper explores questions about the ways in which students, teachers, administrators, and parents negotiate new sets of roles and expectations for schooling in the innovative climate of a new middle school. A new school in an Australian city has implemented a coordinated package of approaches including integrated curriculum, portfolio assessment, a team approach to teacher collaboration in curriculum development, and an ethos of caring and responsibility. The study that this paper was based on employs a narrative research methodology in order to understand the interplay of a large number of institutional, social, and personal factors acting in a complex situation. Also included is a discussion of the ways in which the research methodology contributed to the understandings developed by the researcher about his professional practice and that of his colleagues. Contains 20 references. (DDR)