ABSTRACT
The staffroom is a hive of conversation at times, a place of refuge, of consolation, and preparation. A teacher's day is spent moving over the classroom, through corridors, out to the playground, to the resource rooms and snatching moments to organize activities, outings and action in the classroom, writing reports and managing and teaching children. If anyone had ever said to me that I might be involved in action research simultaneously, I might have looked at them in disbelief. On reflection however, it may have been the suggestion that focuses all these activities on the major element of a teaching life and that is being a thinking teacher. In a sense the school is the shop floor of early life, it is the place where all our understandings come together and in which children's behaviour and attitudes for the future are formed. It is also the place in which what we do is important and essential and should be good practice. It is also the best place to find out what is working and what is not working in education, in what is taught, in resourcing teaching, in learning behaviour and teaching behaviour. It can also be a place of sharing. Action research opens classrooms and helps teachers to understand that they are not islands within a sea but all part of one land mass, where communication, assistance and co-operation between adults can do more for the children in a school than a closed classroom that begs criticism and defence. Behaviour is always high on the agenda and it often is a sensitive area. Making the subject an open and on-going positive communication among staff can be helped by making it also part of an action research which can develop staff, focus on the children and improve school practice.
