IB schools could be called communities of inquiry, since having an inquiry is integral to their identity. The following quotations are taken from the IB document Leading Through Inquiry: The case for a Professional Inquiry approach to leadership development, IB, January 2018.

“The International Baccalaureate (IB) philosophy unequivocally places inquiry at the centre of the learning process. All four IB programmes identify inquiry as a fundamental approach to learning. As one of the attributes of the IB Learner Profile (IBO 2013), inquiry is not simply an attempt to articulate how students learn; it represents one of the cultural norms to which all IB school communities aspire.”

The focus on teachers and school leaders as learners resonates with the school improvement literature and those who advocate the need for schools to identify themselves as professional learning communities. In defining professional inquiry, Reeves (Reeves, J. 2007, “Understanding professional enquiry”, Institute of Education, Stirling University) goes as far as to say that “questioning and seeking ways to improve practice becomes an ethical and political obligation”. By articulating the IB’s mission through the attributes of the IB Learner Profile (IBO 2013), school communities and their leaders are challenged to place student, professional and institutional learning and inquiry at the core of school activity.  Inquiry represents the approach to learning by which deep multi-dimensional and reflective learning can progress.

Katz and Earl (2010) argue that: “Systematic analysis of the situation and professional reflection are regarded as core activities for both individual and collective construction of meaning. We have written elsewhere about having an enquiry habit of mind, a habit of using enquiry and reflection to think about where you are, where you are going, how you will get there, and then turn around and rethink the whole process to see how well it is working and make adjustments Learning about networked learning communities” (School Effectiveness and School Improvement p. 31).” Bolam et al (2005) conclude: “Reflective professional inquiry was integral to the work in a professional learning community. This included analysing achievement and examination data, ongoing conversations about educational issues, frequent examining of practice with colleagues, mutual observation, joint planning and curriculum development” (Creating and Sustaining Effective Professional Learning Communities, DfES, p.136). 

'Spiral of Inquiry' is a model developed in Canada by Linda Kaser and Judy Halbert. The model is grounded in emerging knowledge from the learning sciences, particularly those summarised in the OECD The Nature of Learning (Dumont et al, 2010) based on the following seven principles: Learners at the centre ■ Social nature of learning ■ Emotions are integral to learning ■ Recognising individual differences ■ Stretching all students ■ Assessment for learning ■ Building horizontal connections.

The model has deliberately been designed and visualised as a spiral since one inquiry leads to another.

“The spiral of inquiry … asks you to adopt a curiosity mindset to identify what is going on for learners and to develop some hunches about what is leading to the current situation, before deciding what to do about it. In this way you can work out what is working well so you can build on it, and what is not working so well so you can make changes.Continually checking out what is working well and what is not working so well is an essential part of the process. Looping around the spiral again to use what you have learned in this situation to improve things in another area will deepen understanding and more quickly lead to innovative practices. This kind of transformational work requires a team. It is too difficult for an individual leader or teacher to go it alone.What creates the coherence across the dimensions of the spiral is the focus on evidence seeking, framed by three key questions: 

• What’s going on for our learners? 
• How do we know?
• Why does it matter?"

The spiral of inquiry leads to innovation, as educators create new approaches that are fundamentally different from the way in which things were done before. These changes are based on new sets of assumptions about how young people learn, and on new ideas about how to construct learning environments. The changes are also based on a rich understanding of what is going on for learners.

Go to THIS PAGE to find a helpful video introduction to each of the stages of inquiry.