There are many quality management models that have been adapted to educational institutions which originated in the world of business: Total Quality Management (TQM), Quality Function Deployment (QFD), Six Sigma, ISO 9001, the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award or the Management Model of the European Foundation for Quality - EFQM (Ree, Park, & Yoo, 2014).

These models are based on a global concept of the organisation, they consider several dimensions that are closely connected, and are aimed at helping the organisation achieve its mission. If any of these dimensions is altered, either in a positive or a negative way, the impact on the system is significant (Fernández Díaz, 2013; López Alfaro, 2010). 

In studies on quality management systems there is considerable agreement that what teachers do to facilitate student learning is a very important variable for institutional improvement (Langstrand, Cronemyr & Poksinska, 2015). Likewise, it has been known for a long time now that the characteristics, organisation and management processes in the classroom are decisive in determining quality and student academic performance (Elmore, 1995), although it is difficult to specify the relationship between the different variables. In this sense, there are studies which determined that traditional teaching processes do not improve student learning, which implies a paradigm shift towards effective teaching that focusses on student learning and their activities (Whetten, 2007).

Furthermore, there is plenty of research establishing the relationship between school variables and their impact on student academic performance, for example, good institutional leadership (Hallinger & Heck, 2010; Marzano, Walters & McNulty, 2005) or getting teachers to place greater emphasis on generating creative classroom environments (Mehra & Rhee, 2009).

Therefore, we consider that quality management systems must primarily influence teaching-learning processes (De Miguel and Apodaca, 2009), that is, they should be able to improve the school syllabus, the learning-teaching methods, the evaluation processes, the use of learning resources, etc., and the level of effectiveness of these changes and their impact must be determined.

Nonetheless, and despite the possible benefits provided by quality management systems for the schools, it is difficult to find studies that define the evident impact experienced by schools in the processes they carry out, such as teaching-learning (Fernández Díaz, 2013).

As a result of this reflection, and focusing on ISO 9001 STANDARDS as one of the most widely used quality management systems in schools, this study aimed at answering the following question: Is there evidence that establishes the sustainable impact on teaching-learning processes of implementing this quality management system? Although there are studies in literature stressing the impact of ISO STANDARDS in the world of business (Casalino, D'Atri & Braccini, 2012), or in higher education (Goetsch & Davis, 2014; Kasperavičiūtė-Černiauskienė & Serafinas, 2016; Too & Chumba, 2016), for non-university education few studies are available on the impact of the various models (Fernández-Cruz, Egido & Carballo, 2016).

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