This report outlines an alternative approach to researching boys’ underachievement by employing a process orientation.  The aim was to investigate current practice and, over the life span of the project, promote and monitor changes in procedure with a view to further understanding and improving on the situation in a number of settings in the SELP area.  The most appropriate research method to achieve this end is that of Action Research which has at its heart notions of involvement of participants and improvement of processes.  This method has the additional outcome of building research capacity and leaving, at SELP’s disposal, a legacy of practitioners with some action research experience that might be employed in future exercises. 
A group was formed to approach a common understanding of boys’ underachievement in a variety of organisations and to jointly design and subsequently evaluate a series of agreed educational interventions in group members’ respective curriculum areas.  The group met on a regular basis in a series of workshops and, in the interim periods, members communicated with each other and received advice and comments on their various on-going research exercises via a bespoke secure area of the SELP website.
At the onset of the project, how each exercise and, indeed, how the project as a whole would develop was to a certain extent unknown for all participants.  The use of the SELP website as a vehicle of inter-group communication and research monitoring was also an innovation with unknown outcomes.
In this way the project provided an unusual venture for all those taking part and a bold undertaking on behalf of SELP who realised that they would be left with little in the way of a traditional research product by the end of the exercise.
The project resulted in a number of small-scale action research investigations that are represented in this report by a series of seven case-studies. 
Although the nature of the exercise does not culminate in any results per se, there are a number of conclusions and recommendations to be made:
• The SELP sub-group proved to be highly motivated and effective in their various action research exercises within this project.  It is recommended, now that the group is formed and has gained some experience, that further projects be instigated as soon as possible to build on the successful networking exercise and the burgeoning research capacity that the group represents.
• The SELP website potentially provided a very useful means of communication and a powerful networking tool, but was under-exploited throughout the project.  It is recommended that SELP gives attention to ways of exploring further use of the website to a wider range of participants, possible including some cross-phase staff development.

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