In this paper we seek to develop a historical/comparative analysis of the contribution of teachers’ centres to the professional development of teachers in England and Spain during the late 1960s to the early 1990s. In looking back to the impact that teachers’ centres had on teachers in these very different social and political contexts, we examine whether, in spite of being adopted and adapted differently, there was a fundamental essence of the teachers’ centre model. Distilling this essence will permit us to highlight its potential to transcend both time and space, which might speak to those very current concerns about teacher education and professional development that pervade educational discourse and policy development today. (Robinson, 2014; Groves, 2015) In approaching the analysis we draw upon a range of original historical sources, methodologies and interpretations, as well as the comparative theoretical framework of ‘policy borrowing’ developed by David Philips and Kimberly Ochs. (Philips and Ochs, 2003 and 2004)

Initially developed in England and Wales during the 1960s, throughout a period of educational reform and curriculum innovation, the concept of the teachers’ centre as a stimulus for teacher professional development was embraced internationally and went on to become an inspirational model for other countries, including Spain in the early 1980s. Teachers’ centres brought together teachers from a local area and offered a forum in which they could access resources, engage in professional courses and form communities of practice.  Though differently adapted to each country’s particular social, political and economic context, the teachers’ centre model promoted a distinctive philosophy of democratized teacher professional learning which valued organic, teacher-led transformation, was responsive to local demand, and was committed to teacher autonomy.  Teachers’ centres evolved just before neo-liberal discourses of public accountability, performance management, regulation and control began to reshape much of the European educational landscape. Their demise or reformation into quite different institutions by the mid-1990s, corresponded with significant reforms and structural changes to professional practice. In their brief historical moment, however, we argue that teachers’ centres held out a promise to radically shape the teaching profession and educational reform.

In their important analysis of the idea of educational transfer, David Phillips and Kimberly Ochs identify four key stages: attraction; decision; implementation; and internalisation. Their framework focuses mainly on the importing country and examines different factors that facilitate and inhibit the process of international educational borrowing. In this paper, we complement this focus on the importing country, in our case Spain, which embraced the teachers’ centre model in the post-Franco socialist government, newly democratic social and political context of the early 1980s, with an observation of the exporting country, England, where the teachers’ centre model had first been developed. In the paper we seek to address the following four overarching research questions:

• What was the dynamic of exchange between England and Spain that led to the adoption of teachers’ centres in Spain and how was the model differently adapted and negotiated in the Spanish context?
• Looking at the interpretation of the English model of teachers’ centres in Spain, what were the essential characteristics of the model which valued autonomy and organic teacher learning, that transcended both contexts?
• Comparing the demise of the teachers’ centre model in both countries, what aspects of the model no longer suited the direction of teacher professional development policy and practice?
• How might a revisiting of the fundamental principles inherent in the teachers’ centre model relate to current debate around the focus of teacher professional development in a global educational context?

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