This paper reports on a school-university partnership project that aimed to bring together the diverse expertise of university researchers and school-based practitioners to address the problem of low literacy educational attainment levels in a cluster of schools in a disadvantaged region in Queensland. In particular, we focus here on the talk of school-based researchers about their work of supporting teachers in learning to gather and use data for their own professional development and student learning purposes. Contrary to the state government's current trend towards additional outside testing and the use of 'flying squads' of external experts to deal with 'problems' of low achievement levels in Queensland schools, our analysis suggests that the partnership work with teachers in schools is a complex process that involves the creation of long-term relationships that build on mutual trust and respect and achieve the disruption of teachers' everyday teaching routines by introducing learning opportunities that are flexible, responsive and, most importantly, give greater agency to the teachers. These suggestions will be elaborated in the paper by bringing examples from the researchers' work and by analysing their reflections.