From ‘consulting pupils’ to ‘pupils as researchers’: a situated case narrative Pat Thomson *a and Helen Gunter b a University of Nottingham, UK; b University of Manchester, UK (Submitted 5 May 2005; accepted 15 July 2005) Schools in England are now being encouraged to ‘personalise’ the curriculum and to consult students about teaching and learning. This article reports on an evaluation of one high school which is working hard to increase student subject choice, introduce integrated curriculum in the middle years and to improve teaching and learning while maintaining a commitment to inclusive and equitable comprehensive education. The authors worked with a small group of students as consultants to develop a ‘student’s-eye’ set of evaluative categories in a school-wide student survey. They also conducted teacher, student and governor interviews, lesson and meeting observations, and student ‘mind-mapping’ exercises. In this article, in the light of the findings, the authors discuss the processes they used to work jointly with the student research team, and how they moved from pupils-as-consultants to pupils-as-researchers, a potentially more transformative/ disruptive practice. They query the notion of ‘authentic student voice’ and show it as discursive and heterogeneous: they thus suggest that both a standards and a rights framings of student voice must be regarded critically. Introduction In England, the UK Government has an ambitious agenda to improve schools, accelerate pupils’ learning and close the achievement gap between rich and poor students. There is a substantial body of research which documents and interrogates this agenda (e.g. Glatter et al., 1997; Whitty et al., 1997; Ball et al., 2000; Tomlinson, 2001; Gewirtz, 2002; Gorard et al., 2003). ‘Pupil voice’ and a push to ‘personalise’ the curriculum have recently been added to the array of policies in play and this also requires research and analysis. This article concerns one school that obtained funding from the Innovations Unit of the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) to pursue an ambitious programme of ‘personalising’ school change. We were invited into the school to *Corresponding author: School of Education, The Dearing Building, Jubilee Campus, Wollaton Road, Nottingham, NG8 1BB, UK. Email: patricia.thomson@nottingham.ac.uk British Educational Research Journal Vol. 32, No. 6, December 2006, pp. 839–856 ISSN 0141-1926 (print)/ISSN 1469-3518 (online)/06/060839-18 # 2006 British Educational Research Association DOI: 10.1080/01411920600989487