This article describes the phases that teachers went through in their engagement with innovative teaching strategies as part of a school-based research consortium linked to a university department of education in England. The teachers recorded their experiences and responses in diaries which gave access to their dominant feelings and concerns during the innovation. The diaries were analysed to investigate changes in the entries over time. The six phases were: "initiation", "novice", "concerns", "consolidation", "expansion" and "commitment". The analysis also indicates the changing nature of professional support that was important during each of these phases. The conditions that characterized the "working space" created by the teachers are discussed and particular emphasis is given to the fact that they collaborated with each other and with outside agents. Evidence from later interviews is used to suggest that these conditions have had a lasting impact on the schools. Further these conditions are related to the concept of social capital and the school research coordinator exploiting a "hole" in the organization. It is argued that social capital among teachers and school leaders is critical to large-scale change.