Trialling, applying and developing the RESPOND tools

The primary aim of RESPOND has been to conduct research directed to wards the improvement of educational practice, in terms both of teacher pro fessional development and overall school development as a professional learning environment, and to produce tools able to promote this aim. This has involved investigating the conditions for realizing a coherent developmental process bringing change in particular practical contexts, whereby what we have identified as key educational values and attitudes can be translated into context-dependent choices about which concrete approaches and procedures are consistent with them and can be applied in those specific circumstances. This has necessarily entailed close collaboration within the partnership between the researchers who analyse the educational practice and propose frameworks for improvement and the teachers who actually implement them through applying the tools provided.