Noticing the unnoticed : how can primary mathematics CPD programmes use 'researching from the inside' to develop critical thinking and professional agency for teachers?

Changing teachers' practice through the CPD process is challenging. Programmes frequently based on centrally devised government interventions and produced on the of a 'one size fits all ' approach. This could be criticised for disempowering teachers they are seen a.5 passive recipients of a system. Programmes may also be ineffective because they ignore the vast range of abilities and backgrounds of the children they originally intended to help. I argue that CPD programmes should facilitate teachers' professional agency and report on how teachers develop and maintain their professional identities despite conflicts between their personal aspirations, programme ' ideals' and the context of perfomativity present within the UK education system. I discuss how a primary mathematics CPD programme applied the 'Discipline of Noticing' in order to facilitate teacher agency and enabled teachers to develop a deeper understanding of their own pedagogical subject knowledge primarily through researching their own practice and developing skills of critical reflexivity. 'Noticing' as a discipline involves practitioners recording salient, micro incidents within their teaching. Subsequent reflection aims to facilitate a drawing back from immediate practice and so enables teachers to see things they have previously overlooked, or have become habituated to see. I report on practitioners who by employing skills of noticing demonstrated an enhanced ability to reflect critically and an increased awareness of their own pedagogical practice. This led to changes in their practice and enabled them to articulate the choices they made within their teaching, thus gaining agency as professional decision-makers. furthermore, I discuss how the Discipline of Noticing facilitated a move into a 'third! space' (Gutierrez, Baquedano-Lopez and Tejeda 1999), characterised by the hybridisation of the roles of practitioner and researcher. I conclude that the potential for real change and teacher empowerment can come about through the dissolution of the boundary between practitioner and researcher.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo