Page 24 - Agency Project

Step 3:

Form a Wider Inquiry Team

3.1 What does it mean?

There is a difference between your Agency Project Team and an Extended
Inquiry Team.

In Links we help each other learn — you will work with different people on your
project. As well as working with your Alliance colleagues, you’ll work with many
others — we call these an Extended Inquiry Team.

We call this an extended team because you will need more people to help you
than just your Alliance colleagues. For example, an inquiry into Information
Communication Technology (ICT) in your school should include collaboration
with someone with knowledge of ICT. If you want to do a parent survey, you will
probably need the collaboration of parents on the board. These are people not
in your Alliance but should be acknowledged in your project reporting.

3.2 Hints

Don’t forget VIPS. Because this is to be a real school improvement and is not
just theoretical, make sure you have included in your inquiry team the people in
your school that ‘matter’ in regards to your chosen inquiry. For example, if you
are going to inquire into ways of improving formative assessment processes, you
should include the VP Assessment in your wider team.

Time and effort. Your wider inquiry team members are just people whom
you consult with or get ideas and information from. They are NOT expected
to join your Agency Project Team and do all the hard work for you. One
project team that wanted to inquire into home-school communications once
asked the School Counsellor (who was not on the Agency Project Team) to
conduct a survey for them. This may not be appropriate.

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