National Professional Qualifications

It was always a high priority, as a headteacher, to provide my staff with a career pathway which focused on leadership from their early career. Every teacher is a leader from day one and needs support in learning how to grow and develop their teams to enable successful school improvement to take place for the benefit of the children.

In a small school, teachers, will after their first year of teaching, become subject leaders requiring another set of leadership skills. The NPQs provided my staff with an opportunity to:

explore leadership strategies, which developed their ability to communicate their vision more effectively with other stakeholders and to plan for change; to recognise their own leadership traits, how these might impact on others and how they can build an ethos of trust and collaboration; to consider ways of managing their time more effectively; to look at change models and how others might react to change; and to explore the benefits of working in partnership.

I found that staff completing the NPQs grew in confidence as leaders, cultivated enthusiastic teams within their classes, and the school, that achieved successful school improvement.

The NPQ courses linked theory and practice perfectly. It gave me the confidence to lead a team of professionals and gave me the skills to reflect and monitor impact. I could not recommend the programmes highly enough working with my local cluster and UCL the support given at all levels is fantastic.

I am now Deputy Head teacher and leading the school for two days a week. Without completing these courses, I would not be in this privileged position where I get to support, develop and lead a fantastic team. I will be continuing my NPQ journey and will be completing the NPQH this year.

As a federation of schools, the NPQs have been a focussed part of our leadership continuum. The impact is very clear. Four secured Headship and the others have moved to senior positions within and outside of our federation. Many of them have been involved in supporting other schools in school development.

We were also able to shift our Ofsted grading to good with outstanding leadership in a short space of time. More importantly, the impact on our children is clear to see. Our leaders have the understanding and ability to respond to change and lead developments for our pupils resulting in much better progress for our children.

I love facilitating the NPQ programmes, not only is it a joy to work with so many great teacher leaders but it is a privilege to see the depth of learning that is experienced when teachers from different phases come together to learn. These programmes have an impact on participants professionally and personally and as a result benefit the pupils that they are working with.

Great to meet other practitioners and share our experiences, challenges and successes with a view to self-developing. The course has made me consider other perspectives on features of teaching practice which I just took for granted. Leadership accreditation will look brilliant on your C.V. and the expert course leaders are welcoming, engaging and entertaining.

The NPQSL programme has allowed me dedicated time and space to work on key leadership skills and to explore research led material to drive forward specific change in my school. This change project, as part of our SDP, has had a direct impact on pupil progress for all pupils from 3–19, across three phases and is now going to be embedded into the continuous cycle within the school as it is effective and sustainable.

More than anything, completing the NPQSL helped restore my confidence in my abilities following a challenging period in my life, and restored my ambition to become a senior leader.

During the course I was appointed SENDCo, an SLT level role, and since then I have been promoted to Assistant Head for Inclusion, so I have successfully realised my ambitions since undertaking the course. It’s hard work, sometimes challenging but very rewarding and I am glad of the skills and knowledge I gained from the NPQSL.

I would highly recommend the NPQSL for anyone looking to make the transition from Middle to Senior Leadership. One of the key strengths of the programme was that it guided and gave me space (with excellent literature and skilled facilitators) to be reflective about the type of senior leader I wished to become. I now feel much more confident in 'sharing a vision' and 'implementing change'.

As a result of the 'Leading Effective Partnerships' module I now have a greater understanding of the importance of developing relationships with stakeholders beyond the immediate school community. Investing in this programme at the start of anyone's senior leadership journey will not only help you to lead with impact and maybe avoid some of those new role pitfalls but will also mean that the staff and students you work with in your school community will flourish under your leadership.

The UCL IOE NPQSL was a very important stage in my career development. The reading material was excellent and the workshop sessions were lively and provocative. The school project that I organised gave me enormous insight into successful leadership. Completing an NPQSL gave me the confidence to apply for and be offered a senior leadership post. Highly recommended.

We’ve all gained such a lot from participating in this NPQ particularly through: collaboration with peers, reading research and applying it, structured reflection, case studies, agency and autonomy with the implementation project.

It was wonderful to be with like minded colleagues, away from work and being looked after! To be able to focus on being a better leader for both myself and my school was so useful and has rejuvenated me a little! I enjoyed the mix of presentations and group/pair activities/discussions. It was all really well organised and a lovely venue. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

As the UK’s largest university-based centre for research, teaching, development and innovation in education leadership, the UCL Centre for Educational Leadership looks forward to delivering the full suite of NPQs with our school partners.

The new programmes will be informed by cutting edge research and evidence on how teachers and school leaders learn and grow over time and underpinned by the IOE’s values to work for and with schools to enable them to make meaningful connections between theory, evidence and practice in their own contexts of learning.

Such values ensure that our approach centres upon building and improving schools’ own organisational and leadership capacity for teacher and leadership development through trusted partnership.