This paper discusses a critical challenge to current paradigms of continuing professional development within higher education institutions. A small group of higher-education-based teacher educators for the English post-compulsory sector describes and exposes the values and processes operating within a particular kind of professional development ‘space’ of their own creation. The main constituents of this way of working are identified and the process is illustrated with reference to the experience of collaborative writing within the group. The focus on criticality leads to an emerging concept of ‘critical collaborative writing’, and the implications of this particular example for higher education colleagues and institutions are explored.