ABSTRACT
In the UK, external accountability has been embedded over the course of more than decades. Effective leadership, teaching and learning take place when that internal accountability is harnessed and celebrated. The de-professionalization of teachers has been widely noted by educational researchers from Stephen Ball's description of the 'terrors of performativity' to S. Gewirtz et al., but seems to have had little impact on educational policies or political attitudes to the teaching profession. The classic settler–main starter–core–plenary format effectively straitjackets new teachers into an approach that meets neither teachers' nor learners' needs. In leadership literature, there is an increasing emphasis on protecting colleagues, sheltering them from political demands and enabling them to develop their own cultures of collaboration and shared practice. The research conducted by David Frost into non-positional teacher leadership, based on the HertsCam Teacher-Led Development Work programme, has particular relevance for British teachers.
