What is Collaborative Enquiry?

Collaborative enquiry is a powerful approach to strengthening professional agency and deepening engagement with learners, families, and the wider community. It invites educators to work together in a deliberate, reflective way—questioning practice, exploring evidence, and co-constructing new understanding that leads to meaningful change.

Taking an enquiring stance collaboratively can involve:

• regularly asking questions about your own and others’ practice, with a view to informing action
• taking shared responsibility for the learning of all children and young people, and adult learners in your setting
• engaging in purposeful dialogue and respectful challenge with colleagues
• making professional judgements together and learning from diverse perspectives
• collaborating with learners, not only for them, recognising the value of their insights and the role this plays in developing their metacognition

To support this way of working, the Coaching in Education resource offers practical tools, models, and approaches that help foster the trust, curiosity, and high-quality dialogue essential to collaborative enquiry. By developing coaching skills, such as listening deeply, asking purposeful questions, and building strong relational foundations, you can create the conditions for a more open, reflective and empowering enquiry process.

This section explores what it means to lead collaborative enquiry and how coaching can enhance both the process and the professional relationships that underpin it.

Coaching as a support for collaboration

Coaching in Education is an open access professional learning resource that helps educators understand the wide-ranging benefits of coaching and how it can positively influence learning, development, and collaborative practice across Scottish education.

For those leading collaborative enquiry, the resource offers practical guidance and structured learning that can strengthen facilitation, deepen reflective dialogue, and build a shared culture of enquiry within a team or setting.

The resource supports those leading collaborative enquiry to:

• Develop a clear understanding of coaching in educational contexts, and how coaching principles, such as trust, curiosity, and reflective questioning, can enhance collaborative enquiry processes.
• Build the skills needed to use a coaching approach when facilitating enquiry groups, supporting colleagues, and creating conditions for open, purposeful professional dialogue.
• Apply coaching methods consistently to strengthen enquiry cycles, promote collective ownership, and support colleagues to reflect critically on evidence, practice, and impact.

There are three self-directed professional learning activities (PLAs) designed to support you to use a coaching approach and to learn and develop your coaching practice.

Leading collaborative enquiry

Before leading a collaborative practitioner process, it is important that you are clear on the enquiry process and it’s key stages. Taking time to reflect on your own understanding will help you guide the group more confidently.

Questions to consider:

• What is your own interpretation of the nature and purpose of practitioner enquiry
• Might members of your group interpret enquiry differently? If so, how could you negotiate these differences?

Educators often experience practitioner enquiry in different ways.

You may find it helpful to use the introduction to enquiry workshop resource to build a shared understanding before you begin working together.

Distinct nature of collaborative practitioner enquiry

Collaborative enquiry is powerful and professionally rewarding, but it also demands careful relationship building and shared commitment. Like all change processes it can be described as technically simple but socially complex. This highlights the importance of attending to group dynamics as well as the enquiry process.

Unlike individual enquiry, collaborative practitioner enquiry involves all members exploring the same aspect of practice. This creates rich opportunities for establishment-wide professional learning but requires ongoing negotiation, trust and collaboration.

Practitioner enquiry groups do not need to be fixed by subject, year group, or role. In fact, groups that are mixed - bringing together different remits, disciplines, and stages - often generate deeper insights and more innovative thinking. This fluidity can make collaborative enquiry more inclusive, more responsive, and ultimately more impactful.

Questions to consider:

• What, for you, makes collaborative practitioner enquiry distinctive?
• How will you foster genuine collaboration across your group?

Leading a Collaborative Enquiry Group

Leading a collaborative enquiry group can be a significant learning experience—especially if it’s your first time supporting colleagues in a more formal leadership role. Thinking ahead about your leadership approach will help create the conditions for meaningful participation.

In this video we hear from Vicki Sherry, Jayne Hamilton and Vicki McKinley from Bannockburn High School, Stirling discussing how they are building a culture of enquiry in their school.

Questions to consider:

• What strategies will you use to ensure all members remain engaged in the enquiry?
• What leadership qualities do you consider most important when guiding collaborative professional learning?

Collaboratively Analysing and Sharing Learning

A core part of any enquiry is analysing and sharing learning. In collaborative enquiry, this becomes a collective process. If everyone has been exploring the same area of practice, then analysing and presenting findings together can lead to deeper insights and stronger professional messages.

This stage requires time, coordination, and open discussion—but the outcome, such as a jointly created presentation or publication, can contribute valuable learning to both your setting and the wider profession.

Questions to consider:

• Where and when might your group share the learning from your enquiry?
• How will you ensure the group has enough time to analyse findings and prepare to share them confidently?