This paper describes how recent education reform in Wales has supported a culture of collaborative working in schools, which is one of the characteristic features of the Bangor Poverty and Learning in Urban Schools (PLUS) project. It begins with work done with schools across North Wales to improve the uptake and impact of research and evidence use in schools given the current ‘social partnership’ policymaking agenda. Through Welsh Government’s 2021 National Strategy for Education Research and Enquiry, education professionals have been tasked with the challenge of moving education in Wales to a more research and evidence-informed system. We are guided by Thomson, Lingard and Wrigley’s (2012) unifying theme of, ideas for practice at systemic, policy, school and pedagogic levels, and Fullan’s (2023) idea of internal system drivers to enable better quality decision making and outcomes for disadvantaged learners such as those in the Trem y Mynydd and other school communities across Wales. However, we are only just beginning to know how we might encourage teachers to become research-active and get evidence into action in schools while the debate itself is often represented through polarised camps (Hammersley, 2009, 2015; Thomas, 2016, 2021; Pegram et al., 2022). It is within this contentious policy and practice space that we will describe our work with Welsh Government to evaluate how a network of schools serving disadvantaged communities worked with researchers and the regional school improvement service through the Embedding Research and Enquiry in Schools (EREiS) project. We explore how moves toward a more research-active, evidence-informed and ultimately evidence-based system (Owen et al, 2022) can be set within a progressive policy context that fosters greater teacher agency where intellectual responsibilities are successfully transferred to schools (Priestley, 2015). We present survey and interview findings gathered from schools, and explain how our work offers useful insights to help school leaders develop the professional knowledge to identify ‘best bets’ to improve learner outcomes rather than ideas and approaches being imposed through policy compliance measures. We conclude with some reflections on the worth of this research partnership in a multi-cities ethnography, especially as it provides us with the opportunity to further strengthen our knowledge of how schools can realise the ‘evidence revolution’ through social partnership. For example, the work in Dublin and Brisbane alert us to emerging findings that also identified similar features that need to be in place, which lends weight to our further calls on Welsh Government.

Fullan’s (2023) idea of internal system drivers Hammersley, 2009, 2015 Lunneblad, J. (2020) The value of poverty: an ethnographic study of a school–community partnership, Ethnography and Education, 15:4, 429-444, DOI: 10.1080/17457823.2019.1689518 Owen et al (2022) Pegram et al (2022) Priestley (2015) Thomas, 2016, 2021; Thomson, Lingard and Wrigley (2012) Changing Schools. Alternative ways to make a world of difference. London: Routledge. Rizvi and Lingard (2009) Globalising Education Policy.