Against the backdrop of teacher shortages in the Netherlands, Dutch policy makers, schools, teacher education institutes and others are working together at various ends to increase the number of (student) teachers. On the one hand they are working on improving the attractiveness of teacher education for instance by further flexibilization of the programmes. On the other hand, to increase chances that teachers will stay in the teaching profession, schools are offering career pathways for their teachers accompanied by professional development support. The pathways contain inspiring development perspectives for teachers, regarding the following four domains (Snoek, de Wit, Dengerink, van der Wolk, van Eldik, & Wirtz, 2017): 1] supporting learners in their learning processes; 2] developing curriculum; 3] organizing education; and 4] supporting fellow teachers’ professional learning. Every teacher has capacities in the first domain, and these can be combined with one or more of the other domains, with each domain starting from their initial education towards becoming experienced and expert in the domain. Thus, teachers can broaden themselves towards the other domains. In this contribution, we will further focus on the second pathway highlighted (i.e. the perspective of the teacher as curriculum maker). Besides earlier studies (e.g. Handelzalts, Nieveen & van den Akker, 2019), we studied four teacher teams who were working on parts of their school curriculum. The data set comprised interview and focus group data, as well as the curriculum materials. Based on the results, we concluded that fulfilling curriculum-making roles within the school context brings several challenges for these teacher teams. Some of these are related to the need for further professional development regarding design, socio-political and substantive issues. Other challenges are related to the school organization as a supportive context for curriculum making efforts. Curriculum making as one of the beckoning perspectives for teachers requires more in depth understanding of the phenomenon itself, as well as the material and personal support of the school leadership, support agencies and teacher education. Although we cannot draw generalisations form this multiple case study we will discuss possible implications of these findings for our initial and in-service teacher education programmes.

Handelzalts, A., Nieveen, N. & Van den Akker, J. (2019). Teacher Design Teams for School-wide Curriculum Development: Reflections on an Early Study. In J. Pieters, J. Voogt, J. & N. Pareja Roblin (Eds.), Collaborative Curriculum Design: Sustainable Curriculum Innovation and Teacher Learning. Springer. Snoek, M., de Wit, B., Dengerink, J., van der Wolk, W., van Eldik, S., & Wirtz, N. (2017). Een beroepsbeeld voor de leraar: Over ontwikkelrichtingen en groei van leraren in het onderwijs. [a professional image for the teacher: About development directions and growth of teachers in education. Own edition.