Fred: I think you should have the confidence to speak out but maybe not be too confident.

Sarah: What has been my involvement in this project?

Exploring research techniques with student researchers: Sarah: What is research? Yr. 7 Student: Finding out information about a particuar subect. Yr. 7 Student: Experimenting to see what different results you get in a particular subject. Sarah: What is the difference between high quality research and 'finding out'? Yr 7 student: You can go onto the Internet and just print off a whole page - but research? You read something and establsih the key points about the subject.

The sort of research I like is practical experiments.

Karen: Working with students is helping me to sustain change. Shane (above) is videoing the research group.

Shane explains how he knew there was a group of teachers working together in his school. He found his teacher's research on http://www.TeacherResearch.net but to his dismay, realised he was anonymised in the report.

Shane: Quite a good idea is to write a diary. I don't know if you can think of ways to do a diray other than just writing in a book. One way you can do this is on the Internet. If you have your diary in a book only one person can see it at a time, but if you have it on line everyone can see it - and you can't lose it!

Students' Draft PowerPoint How did karen assist students to take ownership of their PowerPoint presentation to the Head Teacher of their school? Look at her annotations in the students' draft PowerPoint presentation for indicatons of her influence.

This video shows extracts from activities at the Teacher Development Day on 6 January 2003 at Westwood St Thomas School, Salisbury, and from the Becta Conference on Action Research on 2 March 2005. Transcript of extracts from the movie. This video was taken at the Teacher Development Day for Westwood St. Thomas School in Salisbury on 6 January 2003. Karen Collins (later Karen Riding) taught at this school before moving to Bishop Wordsworth's School also in Salisbury. By an unexpected turn of events, Shane and Alex also moved on to Bishop Wordsworth's School where they later joined forces to become research mentors for Year 7 students. 6 January 2003 Teacher Development Day relating to working with Gifted and Talented Students Karen Collins: introduces the idea of working with students in the Teacher Research Day It's really time to get inside their heads and what can they tell us that is extra to what we actually think or is what we have written down. What exactly do they think? Certainly when I sat down with them for 10 or 15 minutes, a lot came out from that discussion, a lot of things which I had bi-passed and a couple of things which I think I had got wrong. We are going to be working with them and this is really an exchange of information so what do they think of the six areas we are looking at and what do we think? Do they both match up? Shane: explains the video that teachers are going to watch a video taken by students of their lesson. We had just started our coursework on photosynthesis and we were collecting our results and information for it (just before teachers watch the students' video of a lesson they were participating in). Karen: co-presents with Sarah at Becta's Action Research Conference (2 March 2005) Sarah has made a vital point when she says it is about working in schools with practitioners and Sarah working with us as a university academic. So it is not just one side of the coin. It is actually both sides working together. There is no way I could have come to the understanding I have got today about research if I had not had that contact with the University as a teacher researcher. I think that is crucial.

How did the project begin to enable students to research? 16 January 2005 when Karen Riding (nee Collins) emails Sarah Fletcher at Bath Spa University (nee University College!) I attach a document which I have adapted from Julia Flutters' materials on Cambridge University's Consulting Pupils project to see if you think they are workable. I would like to give you a group of 5 students (mixed ability). I can come and sit in on the last part of the session. I have asked Shane and Alex (remember the two boys who worked with the Westwood Group 1.5 years ago for that fantastic session?) to join us. I think that they would be a great asset. The basics of the project is that I would like them to look at the KS3 Strategy for Languages, in essence looking at the effect on pupil learning for objective based teaching. I want to start small but I hope that this will be the start of a much wider project within the school. n exciting project that I cannot wait to get underway. I feel that it is important that I do not train them myself as I wish for an 'objective' outsider with research experience to undertake this for me.

One way Mrs Riding has written her diary in the past is more like a weblog. I am sure she would set one up for you. You can log in at lunchtime or maybe Mrs Riding will give you time in her lesson. What was your approach and/or what evidence have you gathered?

Paddy: There's no point in being able to say things if you can't back them up. Maybe being intelligent is one factor. Evidence is proof to back up your answers, or statement.

In 2003 Alex and Shane assisted teachers at their previous school, Westwood St Thomas, to learn about assessment techniques. At a Teacher Development Day Karen sets a challenge: Do teachers and students think the same?

Theo talks about how his teacher, Mrs Riding, determines who understands her lesson: 'She's quite good. She asks 'Do you understand?' People hold up a red card if they don't, an orange one if they sort of understand and green if they really do understand. If quite a lot of the class answer red then she will probably reinforce the point and try to get it into our heads.

How does Shane view teacher research?