This article explores the implementation of the English model of teachers' centres in the context of 1980s Spain. Originally it was a top-down plan initiated by a national government. However, from the very beginning its fate was dependent on a bottom-up educational project carried out by pedagogical social movements. The first part of the article focuses on the multiple factors, the combination of which finally brought about the mediated educational transfer of the English teachers centres into Spain. The second part analyses the role played by the pedagogical movements during the implementation of this new initiative. The article concludes by evaluating how the interaction between the bottom-up and top-down processes gave impulse to the rapid establishment of a grand variety of innovative teachers centres, in the first stage, but ultimately brought about a consolidation of a single, hegemonic model, very different from the original object of educational transfer.