AbstractChildren's participation remains controversial in United Kingdom schools where children and their communities rarely have opportunity to change what happens. This paper considers an original approach that developed cooperative intergenerational inquiry with a class of 10–11‐year‐olds in the north of England as part of complexity‐informed participatory action research to consider children's participation in schools. Children and adults considered together, what schools are for, at the same time enabling children to shape spaces for participation in lesson time. The importance of recognising these spaces as dynamic intra‐subjective meeting points and of intergenerational relationships for change in schools is revealed.