Practitioners at Kirklees College have been undertaking practitioner-led research for a number of years, supported through various funded projects, including emCETT and SUNCETT’s programmes for the Education and Training Foundation. In 2014-15, the college’s teacher education manager, Philippa Firth, decided to take part in emCETT’s ‘WOA to PLAR’ pilot, having seen the positive impact that practitioner-led research was having on teachers and learners in the college.

At Kirklees College, a team of 11 ‘Advanced Teaching and Learning Coaches’ (ATLCs) work across the departments, supporting and coaching their colleagues. Most members of the team have experience of undertaking practitioner-led research. All of this team are are doing their own research projects, as part of their ATLC role and, in some case, supported through the emCETT PLAR programme. Philippa manages this team and decided to do her own practitioner-led research project this year, supported by SUNCETT. Philippa identified this as the ideal team to become Acton Research Leads and support fellow practitioner researchers across the college. The Regional Adviser worked with Philippa to co-faciliate development sessions for the ATLC team, an example of which can be accessed by clicking the image below.

Following training for the ATLCs, an advertisement went to all the staff at Kirklees College offering opportunities to take part in practitioner-led action research. Practitioners could count this research as their 30 hours of CPD for the year. 16 project applications were successful and the research titles for these projects can be seen here.

Researchers will share the outcomes of the work with their colleagues at a college-wide event in October 2015.