Research School Network: Embedding enquiry based practices on the ​“ground”

In June 2016 we embarked upon our first Meols Cop Research Conference. With staff across school undertaking small scale research projects in 2015/16 and some staff being part of national research trials we were keen to showcase our work and continue to push evidence based enquiry with schools across the North West. We were grateful to our four guest speakers – Alex Quigley (@huntingenglish), Professor Rob Coe (@ProfCoe), Gary Jones (@DrGaryJones) and James Richardson (@JDRRichardson) who stimulated some great discussion around the role of research in schools, as well as representatives from over 25 different schools across the region.

We had already attempted to make our department improvement plans more research led in 2015/16 with mixed success. Whilst staff were able to pinpoint their departmental priorities, phrasing this as a research question was more difficult. The research conference gave us the push to take this forward and Dr Gary Jones talked in his presentation about shaping the question using the PICO format:

P – Pupils or Problem. How would you describe the pupil or problem?

I – Intervention. What are you planning to do with your pupils?

C – Comparison. What is the alternative to the intervention/​action/​innovations

O – Outcome. What are the effects of the intervention or action?

This would provide us with a framework for our departmental improvement plans for the new academic year and if we dared for our staff appraisal also. After careful discussion we decided that departments would need to identify three areas of development, linked to outcomes but also as a means of identifying issues pertinent to them particularly with the onset of the new GCSE specifications.

To try and make the process as cyclical as possible we also linked this to staff appraisal (we did dare). Each member of staff has 3 appraisal targets and for the first time this academic year they have phrased one as a PICO question as a means of investigating a specific area of their own practice. I have shared a few examples below:

Greg – History subject leader (@mrthorntonteach) –

“For year 10 middle ability History GCSE students, how well do they perform on homework when topic based knowledge organisers are used compared to those who receive weekly key word/​phrase lists.”

Bronagh – Spanish subject leader (@MissDooris)

“For year 8 students does a speaking based scheme of work improve progress in comparison with a four skilled approach.”

Katrina – Teacher of Drama

“To what extent can literacy help mats improve the written GCSE exam responses for yr11 GCSE students in 2017 compared to the 2016 leaver’s written responses?”

We followed the success of this approach with a second conference in June 2017 after being designated as an EEF Research School, in which we continued to share our evidence based approaches around direct instruction, marking & feedback, mastery and interleaving and retrieval practice. The end of our 2016.17 appraisal cycle in October saw the culmination of the work of staff on their chosen area of research – this was written up using the PICO format and shared with each other through a celebration event. The whole process has seen the development of peer observations, student focus groups and feedback as well as staff engaging with the EEF toolkit for evidence based strategies. Our 2017.18 cycle sees this develop further and we continue to formulate our department improvement plans and appraisal objectives using this format. Some staff will take their earlier research further and roll it out on a much wider scale, while others will refine and hone their practice in other areas.