The key research question for this paper is: How do creative, motivated teachers fight the odds to offer a positive educational experience to young people in socio-cultural conditions which often militate against such approaches? It draws on innovation projects which relate to thinking skills, metacognition, Learning2Learn (Wall et al., 2010) and teacher coaching. These have employed collaborative enquiry between teachers undertaking action research and university researchers synthesizing that research and pursuing related enquiry questions. Teachers have employed methods to understand pupil perspectives’ of pedagogic and curriculum change, such as video, classroom observation, student interviews, pupil view templates and learners’ journals and collaborative reflection. The HE researchers have employed field notes, surveys, interviews and teachers’ journals. The results indicate that key to enacting new forms of pedagogy which realize curriculum ambitions is to develop a profession that can cope with uncertainty and think on its feet, in the classroom and out, and that this contrasts with the dominant objectives-led model of curriculum planning and teaching. Teachers need ‘Working Space’ which gives them permission to experiment, fosters important dialogical characteristics, offers catalytic tools which stimulate creative action, provides strong peer group support and delivers some emotional protection from the dominant discourse.