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there in terms of academic research. Practitioner Enquiry can thus be a way of making teachers more aware of the large bank of academic literature they don’t have time to read. Culture of enquiry Furthermore, the report noted, “ There is evidence of improved professional practice, increased teacher agency and confidence, where the teachers constantly reflected on, and evaluated the effectiveness of their activities. ” In terms of what made an enquiry successful, the researchers found that generally, those participants who “ Started with a focused enquiry question undertook work that not only led to changes in their own personal practice, but also had an impact at a departmental level (pastoral or subject teams) and occasionally at a whole school level with changes to policy and practice. ” On the other hand, those projects that were either over-ambitious (such as ‘Enhancing the quality of verbal interactions between students’) or which lacked focus (see ‘Developing academic resilience’) were unsuccessful. And this perhaps reveals the key problemwhen starting a Practitioner Enquiry. Given that most teachers will be ‘lay people’ with regards to academic research skills, many simply won’t knowwhether the hunch they have is something that can be measured, quantified or indeed uncovered at all. You might think that encouraging young people to take part in outdoor learning will improve the quality of their sleep – but how can you possibly quantify that? And yet, despite this, there are still some benefits for teachers undertaking a Professional Enquiry project. One is that teachers get to ‘re-professionalise’ themselves, through deepening their thinking and understanding of their own practice. They gain practice in developing their voice, and have the opportunity to both enhance their professional agency and influence the thinking of their professional peers. Marsh and Deacon found that turning Practitioner Enquiry into a viable, if not transformative professional development activity required that a number of conditions be met first. These included the need for ‘a culture of enquiry’ in schools, which could provide teachers with the ecological conditions needed to embark on their project, respect for their existing knowledge and support from both senior colleagues and university facilities, enabling practitioners to access any required literature and information. This ‘culture of enquiry’ would also see practitioners regularly developing and controlling the focus of their enquiries, supported by collaborative problem- solving, stimulation and encouragement. Locked into the theory The biggest problem, however, comes when teachers set themselves the task of reading academic papers, peer-reviewed journals and other relevant literature that conflicts with their existing practice and beliefs. According to one source close to the report, teachers can often become ‘locked’ into certain theories of teaching that were current at the start of their career. The report’s researchers quote one teacher who was seeking to apply neurolinguistic programming techniques to their classroom behaviour management strategies: “ I’ve read some of the research papers. It is not how I’ve been taught. I just can’t believe what I’ve read to be right. ” At the other end of the scale, Nicola Daniel – curriculum leader for English at Broughton High School, Edinburgh – found her Practitioner Enquiry to be a positive experience. Writing for the General Teaching Council Scotland, she shared how, “ This project has led me to a better understanding of how boys learn, and why some aspects of male literacy fall behind girls. By being able to explain this to boys, I have found that this has helped boys feel that they are not stupid or weak, but that there is a reason for, say, poor handwriting – and a way to fix it. ” Ideally, Marsh and Deacon’s report into Professional Enquiry will give teachers a dose of realism before they embark on what can be an arduous and complex course of study. Commencing a deep dive into your own practice probably won’t turn your students into geniuses – but it may well reinvigorate your thinking and sense of agency around your work, both of which are worthwhile goals. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Gordon Cairns is an English and forest school teacher who works in a unit for secondary pupils with ASD; he also writes about education, society, cycling and football for a number of publications 25 teachwire.net/secondary C P D