Teacher Leadership: Rationale, strategy and impact

This article presents arguments for teacher leadership. It challenges the current orthodoxy of school organisation and seeks to extend the current debate about distributed leadership. It offers a view of teacher leadership which is inclusive rather than limited to those with management responsibility or specific change agent roles. It focuses on learning-centred development work in which teachers act strategically to improve the quality of teaching and learning. The article includes illustrative cases and proposals for strategies to support teacher leadership. It also offers a framework for planning and evaluating the impact of teacher-led development work.