Teachers and Young Researchers in Action Working Together to Transform Practice

With an increasing emphasis on the role of evidence in education, primary school teachers need to find meaningful ways to engage in research. Teachers and Young Researchers in Action supports teachers and children in carrying out meaningful classroom research that can transform practice. An accessible guide, it shows the different ways in which children and teachers can go about their research, the problems they may meet on the way and the tried and tested methods to meet those challenges. Illustrated with rich real-life examples of research projects – exploring rewards and sanctions, values education, school structures and reading for pleasure – it shows how we can celebrate the importance of the voice of the child in school life, benefitting individual children, teachers and schools alike. This accessible book outlines the benefits of children’s research for individual children, teachers and schools as well as providing case studies that demonstrate how young children’s research projects can be successful. Written for teachers by teachers, this go-to resource will be of interest to anyone working with children as researchers looking to improve their practice and in need of guidance and support.

1. Introducing the Young Researchers Project Viv Randall, Debbie Reel and Nicola Smith 2. The Young Researchers Project Viv Randall 3. Young Researchers Nicola Smith and Debbie Reel 4. Working Together on the Young Researchers Project Debbie Reel and Nicola Smith 5. Young Researchers in Action: Lyndon Green Infant School Kerry Orme 6. Young Researchers in Action: The Oaks Primary School Tara Harris 7. Young Researchers in Action: Kings Heath Primary School Paul Clabon 8. Young Researchers in Action: Cockshut Hill School Steven Moore 9. Your Own Young Researchers Project Debbie Reel and Nicola Smith 10. Young Researchers in the future Ali Fisher and Debbie Reel

Viv Randall, in her role as executive headteacher, was committed and dedicated to developing the capabilities and potential of young children to act as informed voices in the cycle of school improvement. Their development as young researchers proved a crucial feature in effective self-evaluation. Debbie Reel, lecturer in childhood studies and education, has spent her 27-year career teaching both in primary and higher education. Her educational background in learning and teaching has fuelled her goal of ensuring that we all, through action research, contribute within the educational arena and that here, children’s voices are both included and valued. Nicola Smith worked in primary schools in Worcestershire and Birmingham before becoming an adult education tutor and then a lecturer in childhood studies and ITE. She has been involved in the Young Researchers Project for six years and is particularly interested in how the youngest children in school can be researchers.