Powerful partnership in a schools–university research collaboration

The School–University Partnership for Educational Research network (SUPER) is a long-standing research collaboration between eight ¹ local secondary schools and the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. This community of enquiry was set up 13 years ago with the intention of understanding how to learn from research. The enduring purpose is to engage in collaborative research and to learn from that process. Such collaborations bring together university and school practitioners to work collegially on a shared endeavour, which is empowering for all. The SUPER partnership aims at emancipating school colleagues ² by arguing that participation in an inquiry group that meets regularly and forms a key structure within the SUPER partnership (the Teacher Research Coordinator (TRC) group discussed further below), enables these colleagues to position themselves as learners. Evidence of the learning journeys of two practitioners from this group will be presented as a part of a three-year study of the TRC group, conducted to enable the SUPER partnership to learn from reflecting on our ways of working.