Many modern curricula position teachers as autonomous curriculum makers (Priestley & Biesta, 2013). Yet, this is easier said than done. Schools are subject to external demands in relation to prescription about what to teach and how to teach it (input regulation), which limit possibilities for innovation. They are subject to heavy-duty accountability mechanisms – evaluative use of attainment data and external inspections (output regulation) (Kuiper & Berkvens, 2013; Priestley, 2014), which render innovation risky. Moreover, many curricular practices are the result of engrained practice, habituated over many years and often resistant to change, or indeed critical reflection (Gill & Thomson, 2012). Critical Collaborative Professional Enquiry (CCPE) has been developed as a means of interrupting practice and has been utilised to develop teachers’ professional agency as curriculum makers (Drew, Priestley & Michael, 2016; Priestley & Drew, 2019), and develop their intellectual curiosity about pedagogy (Leach & Moon, 2008) through enhancing pedagogical literacy. This paper focuses on recent initiatives in Wales and Scotland, partnerships between a University and regional development agencies, to develop and enhance the capacity of a key group of teachers – middle leaders with responsibility for curriculum development – for strategic curriculum making in/across their schools. The programme in both countries comprised four days of professional learning over a period of six months; it introduced curriculum concepts and explored relevant curriculum practices, then modelled a process of leading curriculum reform through CCPE. The researchers acted as critical colleagues and provided access to pertinent cognitive resources, including research articles to devise the conceptual frameworks the teachers used to develop innovative pedagogical practices. In this paper, we draw upon empirical research – questionnaires, interviews with participants and analysis of artefacts (e.g. SWOT analyses) generated within the programme. We illustrate, using an ecological understanding of teacher agency (Priestley, Biesta & Robinson, 2015), how participants’ agency in curriculum-making was enhanced, especially their capacity to think differently and challenge preconceptions about the curriculum: as their confidence and professional knowledge grew; as they developed supportive and focused professional networks; and as their contexts for curriculum development were tailored to explicitly encourage sustainable innovation.

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