Dame Jean Else, or Miss Else as she was then, spent the first weekend of her tenure as head of Whalley Range high school in Manchester in the school toilets. Little did she know, as she helped to carry out a much-needed paint job in the school’s facilities, that six years later she would be climbing the steps of Buckingham Palace to receive an honour from the Queen.

When she joined the girls’ school in 1994, as one of the government’s feted “superheads”, Whalley Range, in one of the toughest districts of Manchester, was a failing comprehensive so neglected it had the worst truancy figures in the country.

By 2003, pupil numbers had swelled from 760 to 1,700, the GCSE pass rate from 16% to 52% and attendance had risen from 73% to 94%. So it came as a shock to many when last week Else, 54, was dismissed from the school for “multiple errors in judgment”.

This was the final chapter in a two-year saga that began at the end of 2004 when she was suspended from office and marched off the school premises, accused of nepotism, mismanagement and making improper payments to staff.

An Audit Commission report at the beginning of that year had criticised Else — whose salary was over £140,000 — for giving large and unaccounted-for payouts to outgoing members of staff (including a loan of £1,300 to one caretaker, of which only £300 was paid back) and, more damningly, that she employed her twin sister as an assistant head, with a salary of almost £80,000.

But given that recommendations made by the commission’s report were mostly implemented as soon as the draft document was available, and that no evidence of illegal activity was found, the decision to dismiss Else may prove controversial.

“There is always jealousy in these situations. People build something up, then knock it down,” says Else, who has been taking anti-depressants since her suspension.

One of the hardest things, she says, was being excluded from the school she had played such a major part in turning around: “I’ve driven past it frequently, and each time, I think, ‘It’s still mine’. Now I know it’s not, but everything about it says what we’ve done to transform it. That’s a hard one to bear.”

Before the furore, Else had been praised as a miracle worker, although she says her success took time and effort: “In the first four years I was at the school, I did nine years’ worth of work. I went in every weekend and every holiday. It was only after about eight years that I got my first three-week break in the summer holiday.”

Else’s first task was to give students and staff a sense of pride in their environment. After the revamp of the toilets came the redecoration of the school hall, made up to resemble a hotel lobby replete with plants and wall moulds of Grecian maidens. A school uniform was introduced, pupils were prevented from leaving the school at lunchtime, and step-aerobics and martial arts lessons were introduced.

But Else has been subjected to criticism for allegedly eccentric behaviour. Those lavatory walls were painted a brilliant lime, and rumour had it she dressed in purple and rode round the school in a purple golf buggy barking orders to pupils and teachers through a microphone, which she strenuously denies.

Her dismissal is symptomatic of a wider problem faced by schools across Britain, says Else: “During 10 years at the school, there were seven secretaries of state, three chief education officers in Manchester, and hundreds of education authority staff, who don’t stay long, and move on. You’re responding to national and local policy while at the same time trying to improve your own community for your own children.”

And her struggle as one of Labour’s anointed superheads is all too familiar. Long before the city academy was born, these teachers were bearing the responsibility for revamping failing schools single-handedly. At once becoming celebrated troubleshooters and convenient scapegoats when their vision and charisma challenged the existing infrastructure.

Torsten Friedag, the £70,000-a-year head much vaunted by the government’s Fresh Start initiative, took over the running of a new school that replaced George Orwell comprehensive in north London, in 1999. He resigned just six months later, having found the task of rejuvenation “far harder than expected”.

Dame Marie Stubbs, another superhead, was seen as a maverick when she marched into one of London’s toughest schools, St George’s in Maida Vale, 10 years ago. In 12 months, the school was saved from closure but her unorthodox approach, including shaking hands with every pupil personally and bringing in motivational speakers such as actors Ralph Fiennes and Lenny Henry, ruffled feathers.

Despite having worked closely with the former education secretary Estelle Morris, Else is critical of Labour’s education policy: “There has been some good work with literacy and numeracy, and with excellence in cities, but they’ve all been short-term policies.”

And whether city academies can succeed where even some superheads have failed remains to be seen.