‘Send three- and four-pence; we’re going to a dance’: Forward generating research

Abstract

As my playful title suggests, I am referring to the process where the statement, ‘send reinforcements; we’re going to advance,’ is said to have become, ‘send three- and four-pence; we’re going to a dance’.¹ This quotation springs to mind when asked to think about how research gets picked up and recommendations from research are implemented in schools. This paper draws on the professional experiences of the author who has held a variety of roles in schools and the system and has also worked with a university as a system representative on a ‘collaborative’ research project. This paper focuses on the ‘Transient Students Project’² that has recently been described in Changing Schools (DEST and DoD 2002). This example is described as having many of the features of ‘forward-reaching research’, as described in ‘Backtracking practice’ (Figgis et al 2000), in Chapter 3 of The Impact of Educational Research (DETYA 2000). At the heart of this paper is the question ‘who is research for?’