Keeping up to date with current educational thought, theory, research and policy is vital for an enquiring practitioner. It supports you to critically question and continually develop your practice whilst basing it in sound foundations.

Once you have identified your enquiry focus, the next step is to look outwards and see what is already known. There may be books on this in your setting’s professional learning library, or you may find information online.

The following links suggest some databases where you may want to begin your search, but this isn’t an exhaustive list.

Google Scholar searches academic literature and will even provide direct hyperlinks to the full text document if it is available.

Core aggregates the world's open access research papers.

SSSC Learn has a huge variety of resources and training materials.

i-develop learning for community learning and development (CLD) integrates the theory and practice that shape professional learning for the CLD sector. This includes peer support, communities of practice, learning journeys and reflection-in-action.

EBSCO is an online repository of academic journals. This is available to all GTCS registered teachers in Scotland for free through your MyGTCS account. It is a good idea to filter results by ‘Full Text’ only.  Watch our video guide to accessing EBSCO resources.

The Education Scotland website contains academic literature. It is important to relate your enquiring approach within policy. Search practitioner resources or browse by theme.

The British Educational Research Association (BERA) is a membership association is is the leading authority on educational research in the UK. They are committed to advancing research quality, building research capacity and fostering research engagement. They inform the development of policy and practice by promoting the best quality evidence produced by educational research.

The Scottish Educational Research Association is ‘Working for the improvement of education through promoting and sustaining high quality educational research’. Their research bulletins might be a good place to start.

Education in the North is a peer-reviewed and open access journal which publishes work related to the (broadly defined) North. The journal is published twice a year by the School of Education at the University of Aberdeen in the North East of Scotland.

Education Endowment Foundation is an independent charity based in England. They are dedicated to breaking the link between family income and educational achievement. They do this by supporting schools, colleges, and nurseries to improve teaching and learning through better use of evidence. Their Early Years Toolkit and Teaching and Learning Toolkit may be of interest.

It is also important to highlight that not all valuable literature is academic. You may find a useful blog post, podcast, Ted Talk or TES article that also informs your thinking. These are worthwhile sources of information and should be considered. However, it is crucial that you examine the potential bias or agenda the authors may have.

There are numerous guides to reading academic articles online. This example from University of York is part of a broader guide in Critical Thinking and helps us to consider why we are reading the article, how to read an article and various reading strategies: Reading academic articles (University of York).

Top Tip: At this stage we can often be overwhelmed by a wealth of research on our chosen focus and just keep on digging into this.

Take a moment to pause, reflect on why you are taking this enquiring approach and ask yourself "Do I know enough to decide on what actions I will take?"

Your actions and your practice will make a positive impact on your learners.