Finding Our Shared Thread: Reflections on Our First Welsh Network of Inquiry and Innovation Connected Conversation

Our inaugural Welsh Network of Inquiry and Innovation (WNOII) Connected Conversation began with greetings across time zones, familiar faces, new introductions, and a little practice with Welsh. We gathered in a space we hoped would offer something valuable within a busy school day: thirty minutes to pause, connect, and think alongside one another.

We began with an invitation to bring a “probletunity”—a question, tension, or challenge that might open new possibilities when explored with others. Through the Liberating Structures Wise Crowds process, one person shared their inquiry while the rest of us listened, asked clarifying questions, and offered perspectives. Confidentiality, curiosity before judgement, and generous listening guided our conversation.

One participant offered a leadership question that resonated across the group. Within their school, different teams were developing inquiries in response to their learners’ needs. As these inquiries followed different pathways, the leader wondered how to represent the work within a coherent school growth plan.

The question held a familiar leadership tension: how do we sustain a shared direction while allowing people the freedom to respond thoughtfully to their own contexts? Should the teams be drawn towards one whole-school inquiry, or could their different pathways remain connected through a broader purpose?

Our clarifying questions helped uncover an important distinction. A single inquiry was not an external requirement. It was an established approach that had helped the leader articulate the school’s direction and provide a common focus. Recognising this opened space to examine what the school needed now, as its inquiry practices matured.

As the presenting leader turned off their camera and listened, colleagues began making connections with their own experiences.

One colleague described similar questions about shared planning. Different classes needed different responses, and a uniform format could sometimes offer the appearance of coherence without reflecting the learning taking place. This contribution invited us to consider whose needs a common structure serves, and how familiar ways of working can shape our expectations.

Participants explored how shared values and vision could connect different inquiries. A school’s relational commitments and guiding principles could provide a foundation within which staff exercised autonomy. Different approaches could remain connected through what mattered most for learners.

Another contribution invited us to consider the courage involved in leadership growth. When leaders create conditions in which others can explore, respond, and learn, they invite themselves to move beyond the reassurance of familiar structures. Trusting the learning emerging across a school can require the same openness we encourage in others.

Together, we began to see the teams’ different directions as evidence worth exploring. What were they noticing about their learners? How were those observations shaping their decisions? What was changing as a result? Inquiry itself, alongside a shared commitment to meeting learner needs, offered a thread through their work.

This led us towards narrative and documentation. Stories of learners, classes, and teams could make their journeys visible: what prompted an inquiry, what staff tried, what they learned, and where that learning led next. Such accounts could communicate both the school’s shared commitments and the particular responses emerging within different contexts.

When the presenting leader returned to the conversation, they named several ideas that had resonated: connecting through values and vision, allowing themselves to move from safety into growth, slowing down, and using stories to capture learning. Their reflection suggested a shift in how they might articulate coherence while allowing the teams’ inquiries to continue evolving.

For our first Connected Conversation, this felt significant. One colleague’s question gave all of us something to examine in our own practice. We learned through clarification, personal experience, attentive listening, and a willingness to reconsider an assumption.

An observation about the value and excitement of hearing familiar, inquiry-oriented language stayed with us. It spoke to the importance of having a place where our questions and responsibilities find company; where we can think aloud with others who recognise both the possibilities and the uncertainties of this work.

We came together for half an hour. Within that time, we began creating the kind of network we hope to sustain: a place where educators can bring unfinished thinking, recognise themselves in another person’s inquiry, and leave with new possibilities to explore.