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This study was designed primarily to investigate the impact of school-based curriculum development teams on teacher development within the tradition of school-based curriculum development. The results are expected to provide valuable insights for teachers, school management and policy making. Teacher interviews in a primary school in Hong Kong were conducted to evaluate the extent to which teacher engagement in curriculum decision-making processes, which are within two school-based curriculum development teams, led to teacher professional development; these were triangulated with video-taped meetings and tryout lessons. Qualitative evidence showed that participating teachers have each undergone professional development through the processes involved in the planning, experimenting and reflecting (PER) model, which is also upon curriculum practice and innovation under certain conditions. However, the complex structures and processes that have been established to involve teachers in curriculum decision making need further empirical and theoretical work. While previous papers on the studies focused on teacher development and pupil learning, this paper, based on interview data, aims to focus on the functions of distributed leadership, and how the leadership styles of consultants and panel heads mediate the interactional patterns and therefore the discourses in the Mathematics and Chinese development teams in the second action cycle of the innovation project.Keywords curriculum change, distributed leadership, school-based models of curriculum development, teacher development Context of ChangeThe decentralization of curriculum decision making has been one of the key debates in the broad discussion on appropriate change strategies concerning school improvement, teacher development and pupil learning for the past several decades (Skilbeck

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Teacher leadership is one of the essential factors in curriculum implementation. Curriculum development is never an easy task for teachers. Several studies have indicated that teacher leadership has led to school improvement and fostered student achievement and engagement in learning. However, most studies have focused on examining teacher leadership in Western contexts; rarely have studies been conducted to explore how teacher leadership takes place in an ‘East meets West’ context. The aims of the mixed-method study are the following: (a) to investigate teachers’ perceptions and experiences of teacher leadership, and (b) to explore how teachers act out teacher leadership in a peer network. This study used the case of a local primary school. Data collection methods included teacher surveys, individual interviews with teachers, and field notes from a one-day teacher shadowing. The data indicated that teachers were more oriented towards student learning, but insufficient space was available for enacting teacher leadership in terms of teacher collaboration, shared leadership and reflective practice. Thus, implications for teacher leadership development are discussed.