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Creating a School-Wide Research Culture

17th Jun 2020

We were delighted to be included in the Eton Journal for Innovation and Research in Education. This is a prestigious publication which is widely read by everyone in the education industry. Therefore to be recognised as a school focused on Innovation and Research is lovely.

Our article is a case study showing how we created a school-wide research culture and the impact that has had. The first step of growth came when we made contact with Jonnie Noakes at the Tony Little Centre for Innovation and Research in Learning (CIRL). Jonnie invited us to visit and advised that if we were serious about growing our research culture at Holme Grange then appointing a member of staff to focus on and lead research in school would be an important step. We then appointed a research lead role and the person joined other teacher researchers at a workshop held at CIRL. This kick started our research culture journey.

The journal is a really interesting read and all the topics relate to the theme ‘Tradition and Change’ although this was decided before the unprecedented changes brought upon education by Covid-19. At the beginning of this year, no one could have predicted that months would be spent in front of screens while students were learning remotely or that half the world’s student population would be out of school or university. While at the beginning of the year many teachers were grappling with questions concerning the merits and wider use of educational technology in the classroom, we now rely on educational technology to communicate with students at all.

As a school we felt well placed to implement new teaching platforms and adapted very quickly to the changing situation due to the fact that we were exploring some of the platforms as part of our research and innovation. Maybe a key learning from the COVID pandemic is to constantly be looking to the future and evolving teaching practice.

Please follow the link to the whole journal. The Journal