This paper reflects the forthcoming publication (August 2025) of ‘Teachers and the practice of leadership: enabling change for transformation and social justice’ by David Frost, Judy Durrant, Val Hill, Gary Holden and Amanda Roberts. The book draws on over three decades of research and development focusing on strategies to empower and enable teachers as agents of change in their schools and beyond. Drawing on arguments in the book, this paper explores alternative modes of teacher professionality in which leadership is a key dimension. In this paper the authors draw on the evidence presented in the book from a rich pattern of interventions and research which have enabled many teachers to become agents of change in countries in Europe, the Western Balkans, the Middle East and Central Asia. The analysis focuses on the impact of participation in programmes to support non-positional teacher leadership, especially on teachers. The dimensions of teacher transformation are considered under the following headings: skills and practical know-how, knowledge and understanding, dispositions, professionality and leadership capacity. In addition to the focus on teacher transformation, the paper includes arguments concerning the wider implications for educational reform and social justice. The paper echoes the book in making the case that, not only is it possible to empower and enable teachers as agents of change in a range of different cultural environments, but also that this is imperative in the light of the consistent failure of the usual approaches to education reform. Whether we look at government interventions to improve school effectiveness in the global north or the appalling lack of progress towards SDG4 across the world, the picture is bleak. In this paper the authors argue that it is time to concentrate on the hitherto largely untapped resource that is teachers’ optimism, creativity, moral purpose and agency.

Frost, D., Durrant, J., Hill, V., Holden, G. and Roberts (2025) Teachers and the practice of leadership: enabling change for transformation and social justice. London: Routledge.