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Education reform requires the commitment and investment of teachers if it is to succeed. Recognising the importance of teacher engagement, some countries have made teacher agency a feature of their curricula. Wales has embraced the notion of teacher agency within the building of its new curriculum by creating a body of Pioneer teachers to shape its new curriculum framework. This paper considers the nature of teacher agency experienced by a group of these Pioneers working on the expressive arts area of the curriculum. It does so through an exploration of the ecological nature of teacher agency, as theorised by Emirbayer and Mische (1998), and it considers agency through a framework of different levels: the micro-level focuses on the individuals and their personal contributions; the macro-level considers Pioneers' work at national level, liaising with teachers from across the country and taking responsibility for creating the curriculum; the meso-level refers to where the two former levels come together, i.e. the Pioneers' work within their own institution, trialling the new curriculum. The evidence indicates that teacher agency was easier to achieve at micro-level and macro-level, than at meso-level. This paper suggests, therefore, that achieving teacher agency at institutional level is more complex and challenging than is the case at the other levels. Greater understanding and attention are, therefore, needed about how to achieve teacher agency in teachers' different spheres of work, particularly when working at institutional level.

Curriculum integration is a feature of many new curricula that have emerged in different countries since around the turn of the millennium. It focuses on removing the boundaries between traditional subject specialisms, to enable more holistic and 'joined-up' learning opportunities. This study draws on the experiences of a group of primary and secondary teachers in Wales, engaged in creating a framework for an integrated curriculum for expressive arts. Whilst the teachers are united in their ambition for establishing a curriculum that gives greater status to the arts, curriculum integration presents significant challenges, notably in how subject knowledge is understood and presented within an integrated curriculum. The teachers take different approaches to curriculum integration, with primary teachers favouring a "transdisciplinary" approach, with child-led learning and themes taking precedence, and secondary teachers opting for "multidisciplinary" approaches, where the themes are organising devices but where subjects take priority. Differing practices suggest differing conceptions of subject knowledge and mastery within an integrated curriculum. Drawing, in particular, on Bernstein's concepts relating to knowledge discourses, this paper suggests that the danger of an integrated curriculum is weakened disciplinary knowledge. Whilst this paper relates to the arts, the messages about curriculum integration might be applied more widely.