This film presents an overview of action research in three schools in England. The text below is from Teachers TV:

"St George's Primary School in Birmingham started an action research project due to the high level newly arrived children at the school. Their research led to the development of a welcome pack that gave children a defined focus for action.

At Colmore Infants School in south Birimingham, reading at KS1 had been identified as a development priority for teachers. Their research project led to the introduction of a succesful bookmark scheme that encouraged more reading at home.

At Douay Martyrs Secondary in Middlesex, head of Year 11 Simon Cheale is engaged in action research as part of his school based MA in education. His research is centred on a motivational scheme for improving boys' performance at GCSE level."

I think the film raises many of the issues which are covered in the literature and as you watch the film you might think about:

What are the benefits of action research for teachers, for pupils and for SMT?

What do you see as the difficulties? A leading question but do you think all the difficulties are covered? What needs to be in place to make action research work?

In these examples where did the question to be addressed come from?

How might a ‘professional researcher differ from a practitioner researcher?

At the end of the film John Elliot asks the question, 'what counts as knowledge of teaching' – any ideas?

The film can be accessed at http://www.teachers.tv/video/4883 it has been downloaded to this site too but you will need Windows Media Player to view it.