The National Teacher Research Panel was set up about 15 years ago by CUREE supported by a group of national education agencies most of which no longer exist. It had three main goals:
- To ensure that all research in education takes account of the teacher perspective
- To ensure a higher profile for research and evidence informed practice in government, academic and practitioner communities
- To increase the number of teachers engaged in and with the full spectrum of research activity.
Over the several years of its existence, the Panel, supported by its expert advisers in CUREE, has helped and encouraged dozens of teachers and school leaders to do high quality but practical research. The Panel also helped them report their findings succinctly, in plain English and focused on relevance to other practitioners. This is one such example of that work.
Whilst making explicit the challenges faced by schools through the questions, this paper also recognises the challenges faced by researchers. In this context the paper’s first goal is to increase the likelihood of schools participating in research on a sustained basis by helping them raise their expectations of what is possible. We also seek to help them understand what is involved so that they can plan for effective participation. We believe that it is possible to carry out research so that the process benefits the school, the teachers and/or the pupils involved as well as the researchers and the potential future readers of the research.
The second purpose of this paper, therefore, is to encourage the academic research community to reflect more fully and openly upon the difficulties they face in working with schools and to consider whether the current guidance and frameworks can be enhanced to create a culture in which schools and teachers become thirsty not only to access and interpret research findings but to act as hosts to the research process.
