Alex Quigley is Assistant Headteacher and English Subject Leader at Huntington Secondary School, York and… head of research. I admit when I first heard about a secondary school having their own head of research, I shared my doubts. In this piece on HuntingEnglish Quigley gives his vision on the different problems using research evidence in education faces:

“There is a problem with getting the knowledge about research evidence into schools and used effectively. ‘Knowledge mobilisation‘ is the buzzword. Teachers aren’t trained in research methods and there is no time to really reflect upon research evidence. When we have those excuses to fall back on, we revert to our strongly held biases and intuitions. It is the path of least resistance. We all do it – it is simply human nature. Thinking is hard. Changing our thinking is even harder. We stick to our habits and research evidence is paid little more than paltry lip-service by every teacher and school leader.”