There will be some tweaking to the approach. I have no doubt about this. Perhaps the length of presentations could be “sharper”? Perhaps there could be a focus on one aspect of ‘doing’ research rather than adhering to a style of presentation akin to a more conventional research seminar format? Whatever we do in the future, yesterday was our first swing at doing something like this, and it was an important first step. There is a vibrant research-in-learning community here and giving it the opportunity to come together in an informal setting, give it voice to share what it is doing helps to establish an affirming environment in which research work can take place.

This was particularly the case for the first presenter, our Deputy Head of Junior School, Ms Yvonne Howard. She used the ResearchMeet as an opportunity to “practice” present on her proposed PhD work on therapy dogs in schools to be conducted with a Sydney-based university. Our second presenter was the Barker Institute’s first Visiting Research Fellow, Associate Professor Amber Yayin Wang from the National Taichung University of Education. She spoke about the purpose of her visit to Barker and about current research work in inquiry-based learning in a transdisciplinary model. I presented on research into refugee education. Specifically, I presented on the research-informed whole school approach to refugee education, a model that emerged from work I have been engaged in since 2022.

The Barker Institute is looking forward to seeing where the idea of running ResearchMeets will go. There will be another one next term. For sure. And you will be warmly invited to come along. Most definitely. You can be assured that it will be informal, take about an hour of your time, and that you will be a part of a school-based educational research community wanting to work together to support learning.

And all that with tea.