Leaders of learning: accomplished teachers as teacher leaders

Teacher leadership has gained currency in the discourse and practice of leadership in schools, aligning with and a product of, more distributive and less hierarchical understanding of and approaches to leadership. This is manifest in schools in a variety of forms and in ways that are more democratic, consultative and participative. This chapter explores the evolution of teacher leadership in the UK, considering how new models of accomplished teaching such as Advanced Skills Teachers and Excellent Teachers in England and Wales and Chartered Teachers in Scotland and Wales represent new forms of teacher leadership which may challenge more traditional structures and ideologies in school. Drawing on critical policy analysis (Forde, C., Accomplished teaching and teacher leadership: Competing ideals? Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, Vienna, Austria, September 2009) and empirical research (Reeves et al. 2010; McMahon et al.. 2008; Connelly and McMahon, Journal of In-service Education, 33(1), 91–105, 2007), the chapter will outline the ways in which these models of accomplished teaching converge with and diverge from theoretical and applied models of teacher leadership and argue that structural and ideological barriers in the education systems of the UK means that these models of teacher leadership are not fully accommodated nor their expertise fully capitalised and utilised. In considering the work of accomplished teachers in curriculum innovation, developing pedagogy and supporting co-practitioners, the chapter concludes by looking at the ways in which in accomplished teaching extends, elides with and challenges existing understandings of teacher leadership