ABSTRACT

Cognisant of fear among the practitioners in teaching and teacher education engaged in the local co-developed CPD programme reported here, this chapter has raised and tentatively answered a number of questions about the redundancy of the two component parts: the non-accredited 'Leading Learning' teacher inquiry project and the MA 'Achievement in City Schools' to encourage practitioner voices. But to more fully address professional concerns the programme went past 'naive possibilitarianism' or an over-reliance on teachers' consciousness-raising to also embrace teachers' politicization. The chapter argues that a stand on child poverty needs to be part of a professional drive via teacher unions and professional associations for research-informed schools policies and allied teacher education strategies. This stands in contradistinction to the ongoing rationalisation of programmes on offer in higher education institutions across England given the reallocation of teacher education away from universities into schools.