The Nuffield Primary History Project's development work in schools has taken the form of action research. Action research is a way of improving your teaching.

Action research involves repeated cycles taking the form:

• Identify improvement needed
• Analyse the issues
• Form teaching plan, drawing on your knowledge and experience, and on others' ideas and research
• Teach, and gather evidence of the children's learning
• Reflect, evaluate and replan.

Action research helps you to:

• Systematically examine and tackle practical problems
• Understand and reflect on your practice as a teacher
• Develop professionally through investigating children's learning.

Why do action research?

• It is self-educational, empowering and democratic
• It gives you control over improvement in a context you understand
• It offers a way to test and evaluate theory in practice.