Building on a decade of a school-university partnership we report on a current project that is examining the development of a learning policy within Kingswood High School. We focus specifically on the development of a learning culture, and we examine how parents and children are working productively within the official policy. Using empirical data we reveal the existence of learning cultures that are out of alignment with this official policy, and how the school is using research to engage and understand this. Thinking productively about professional practice by using Arendt's distinction between labour, work and action, we deploy a framework that identifies four main positions of a researching school. We identified that Kingswood is located in all of them, but it is their action within agenda setting that has the most potential for enabling them to engage productively with the communities they serve. (Contains 1 figure.)