PLAN

Partnership

• Consider the partnerships you and others in your school already have and new partnerships you’d like to develop
• Establish working roles, mechanisms, relationships and desired outcomes

Introduction

This module is about developing partnerships to support your Action Research project.

By partnerships, we mean working with other people either in school or outside of school. This could include working with others in your department or in another department, working with teachers in a partner school, or working with other organisations such as cultural or industry partners. It could include making time for a reflective conversation as part of your planning, it could include attending CPD with a partner organisation, it could include a visit to a cultural organisation with your class, or it could include devising and delivering a project together. We encourage you to think broadly about the partnerships that you already have in place, and how using action research could add to your existing partnership practices.

It’s not compulsory to have a partner in creative action research, but within Penryn Creativity Collaborative we found that bringing in expertise in both creativity and research considerably enriches the process.  It helps underline real world learning and underpins a dialogic understanding of creativity. If you have more hours to carry out this action research you’re more likely to have the capacity to include a partner to design your Creative Action together. The Activity below will help you prepare for this: it’s about exploring your existing school partnerships relevant to your topic, and, if necessary, locating others you can work with to carry out your research.

Activity: Mapping and establishing your partnerships

This is about discovering what relevant partnerships you and others in your school already have, and deciding whether these can provide the support and expertise you need for your action research, and seeking new partners where necessary. In either scenario, it’s important you establish clear understandings of working roles, mechanisms, relationships and desired outcomes. You can then work on your Research Design together. Think about what they can bring to your creativity research focus in terms of skills and expertise, what benefits they might gain from taking part, and whether they have the capacity to join your project.

• First, have a look at the Penryn Creative Collaborative action research reports for examples of different kinds of projects carried out with partners in action research initiatives, including:

• Set up a STEAM challenge for students
• Share understanding of real-world creative learning with teachers to inform Media assignments
• Exampling the scientific creative process at work within the creative industries
• Delivering staff CPD focused on facilitating creative, immersive writing

Examples of external partners from PCC include: Allen and Heath (world-leading British music mixer company); Pendennis Shipyard (one of world’s leading refit/custom build superyacht facilities); Leach Pottery (local pottery housing museum, exhibitions, pottery education and potters studios); Writers Block (writing centre for Cornwall).

• Now, download the Research Journal Creative Partnerships template and complete the top 4 boxes. This will help you map what partnerships with other schools you can include; what partnerships you have with cultural and industry partners; what research expertise/partners you might have available to you.

Talk to colleagues in your school, organisation, wider Multi-Academy Trust or schools community to find out what partnerships already exist that you might build on

 

• Next consider whether working with existing partners will help you to investigate your research question or whether you need new, different partners. Remember you may have more than one partner, e.g. partners who bring creative facilitation expertise, partners who bring research expertise. Add additional partners you would like to find to your template.
• Decide which partners you want to work with and approach them. Think about the following questions with your partner/s; make notes on these in your Creative Partnerships Template:
  • What roles will you and your partner/s play in terms of classroom delivery and research?  
  • Do you need to resource your partners’ time?  If so, where with the funds for this come from?
• If you’re working with professionals external to your school, it’s good practice to formally contract their time and to set up an agreement which details how you will or won’t share data. Most schools will have templates for establishing these kinds of working relationships so talk to administrative/managerial colleagues about setting these up. You might also want to make a data management agreement with partners – see the Ethics Module for further information. Add any learning points to your Creative Partnerships Template.

Further reading

Penryn Creativity Collaborative (2024). Developing Action Research. Cornwall: PCC. 

Reynolds, H. (2025). How do partnerships evolve and flourish. Creativity Exchange Website.

Thomson, P. (2025). Anyone for a theor-orgasm? Academic work in practice and with a practice partner. Patter blog.

Pat Thomson also blogs on many other elements of research; you might like to explore her blog – Patter

FAQS

What if I don’t have the resource to fund a partner?

If you’re doing your action research on very little resource and time, you may decide that it’s enough for your partner to be a colleague within your school who is happy to act as a sounding board, or to share their expertise in creative teaching with you to learn from and experiment with in your research.