This paper focuses on an exploration of the use of participatory approaches for facilitating change in schools. Lesson observations, fieldnotes from meetings, and interviews with teachers and children were collected in a study that aimed at exploring how inclusion can be promoted through an engagement with student voice in primary (elementary) schools (5-11-year-olds), in one city in the South of England, U.K. Data analysis highlighted how participatory approaches and methods (student researchers, sticky notes with unfinished sentences, visual methods and observations) allowed students to be actively involved in the research process and led to changes in their schools. We argue that participatory methods can be a powerful means for change, only if they are used in ways that enable sustained dialogues between teachers and students in schools. Of all the methods that we explore, we highlight observation as important in facilitating such efforts.