In his paper, 'The Knowledge-Creating School', David Hargreaves proposes that schools are key players in the generation of better professional knowledge: of what constitute the most effective teaching and learning practices. The problem is that, much professional knowledge about teaching and learning is locked in the heads of individual teachers and protected by the privacy of their classrooms.

Hargreaves highlights key features characterising knowledge-creating institutions including:

• The encouragement of 'tinkering' or informal enquiry into practice to determine how to improve learning outcomes;
• A scheme of more formal practitioner enquiry, researching key teaching practices.

Successful schools will also have developed a variety of approaches to ensure that the outcomes of this work can be effectively validated and then disseminated both within the institution and beyond.

St Ivo School strongly believes in the approach of being a knowledge creating school. Over recent years there has been a range of activities intended to support this philosophy. The school, fully supported by the Head, has had links with the Faculty of Education at Cambridge University since 1997 as part of the SUPER (Schools and University Partnership into Educational Research) scheme. The focus for the SUPER scheme has included: Leadership for Learning, Student Voice and Independence of Thinking and Learning. More recently the focus has been on pupil voice and currently the partner schools and the Faculty have been researching the concept of ‘student engagement’.

Alan Davies, an Assistant Headteacher, is the Teacher Research co-ordinator (TRC) for the school and acts as the representative of the school at meetings with the Faculty and supports the work of teachers following the SUPER MEd course and others engaged in research within the school.

To support research within the school the Governors have set aside money to support the link between the Faculty of Education at Cambridge and research within the school. Over the last four years various members of staff have been financially supported to obtain an MEd or a Certificate of Further Professional Studies. Currently five teachers from St Ivo have successfully obtained the SUPER MEd qualification and a further two started the course in September 2011.

Below is a diagram that tries to encapsulate the relationship between the school, the Faculty and students: