This paper tells a story about the design, development and impact of a post-graduate Masters-level module aimed at (1) enabling groups of teachers within schools to develop innovative approaches to teaching and learning on the basis of their own Lesson Studies and (2) creating a school network of excellence for Lesson Study in the area as a context for building a cumulative evidence-base, which focuses on identifying and resolving enduring problems of teaching and learning in schools. The first part of the paper outlines the curriculum for the module and sets the innovative conceptual framework that underpins its design . This framework is innovative because it connects and unifies a number of distinct pedagogical perspectives. It links the methodology of Japanese Lesson Study with Stenhouse's idea of 'the teacher as a researcher' and his 'process model' of curriculum development as an alternative to the globally dominant 'objectives model'. Then in turn, the framework incorporates Marton and Booth's pedagogical theory of 'variation'. The paper argues that linking and fusing Lesson Study methodology with this wider context of pedagogical ideas unambiguously renders teacher research as learning study.