The characteristics and professional development of teachers who are involved in working in the professional development of their colleagues is a much under researched area in educational research and this paper attempts to consider some of the issues about developing this group of professionals. The main question it addresses is ‘how do teachers become motivated and develop the confidence, experience and knowledge to lead professional development for their peers?’ In answer to this question the paper offers two case studies which are presented in the form of narratives of the teachers’ stories co-constructed with them. The narratives draw on data from the ‘Researching Effective CPD in Mathematics Education’ (RECME) Project in the UK, funded by the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM), to explore the processes involved in developing from a teacher to a leader of professional development for other teachers of mathematics. The project studied thirty different continuing professional development initiatives for teachers of mathematics from many different regions of England involving a total of over two hundred and fifty teachers of learners ranging between three years old and adults. The paper focuses on the accounts that two of the teachers involved have co-constructed with the researchers about their professional development into leaders of professional development for colleagues both from their own institutions and others and their involvement in two specific programmes of CPD and its effects on their classroom practice.

These two accounts are presented as ‘telling cases’ (Mitchell, 1984) that serve as powerful illustrations of the commonalities and differences in the pathways that the teachers have taken in their professional lives. The paper will then consider one possible theoretical frame for the analysis of commonalities and differences in these accounts taken from the realm of business management that focuses on the ‘champions’ of institutional change. According to Tolbert and Zucker (1996:183) the diffusion of a practice can be ‘spearheaded’ by the action of a ‘champion’. To be successful they must accomplish two tasks of theorisation (Greenwood, Hinings, & Suddaby, 2002; Strang & Meyer, 1993): specification of a general problem for which the innovative practice is a solution; this is followed by justification of the innovation. It is argued that diffusion occurs only if new ideas are compellingly presented as more appropriate than existing practices.

This paper will consider how this frame might be used in the educational context of professional development for teachers of mathematics in relation to the narratives presented in the ‘telling cases.’ The potential, as well as the possible drawbacks, of using this frame in such a context will be considered and evaluated in order to help us to understand how and why these teachers contribute to the professional development of their colleagues.