National Professional Qualification
for Senior Leadership
National Professional Qualification (NPQ): Senior Leadership
NPQSL gives candidates all of the essential knowledge, skills and concepts that underpin successful senior leadership. Participants will cover ‘learn that’ and ‘learn how to’ statements in ten areas:
- 1 – School Culture
- 2 – Teaching
- 3 – Curriculum and Assessment
- 4 – Behaviour
- 5 – Additional and Special Educational Needs and Disabilities
- 6 – Professional Development
- 7 – Organisational Management
- 8 – Implementation
- 9 – Working in Partnership
- 10 – Governance and Accountability
- See NPQSL Framework tab for full programme content.
What are the benefits?
The fully blended learning approach combined with performance coaching and enrichment activities make this an exciting and valuable opportunity for current and aspiring senior leaders.
The NPQSL qualification is aligned to Masters credits and can act as a springboard on to Liverpool Hope University’s MA in Leading in Education or the MBA in Educational Leadership.
Benefits for Participants
- Facilitation and support from serving school leaders in outstanding schools
- Purpose-built virtual learning environment enabled for mobiles and tablets
- Delivery at local venues
- Guaranteed support to pass the final assessment
- Content contextualised for your locality and updated to reflect national developments and legislation
Benefits for Schools
- Regular progress updates for mentors and headteachers
- Support succession of school leaders and build a cohesive, impact-focused school leadership team
- A professionally aware and informed leader who can make evidence-based decisions and approach new challenges in an effective and efficient manner
- The ability to review and evaluate practice in order to bring about change and get the best outcomes for young people and staff within the organisation
Programme DeliveryHow is NPQSL delivered?
NPQSL makes use of a blended delivery model consisting of face-to-face events, online study, webinars and coaching.
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NPQSL participants will attend 4 face-to-face events via the blended delivery model. Our nationwide delivery partnership network allows us to bring face-to-face training to a school near you and facilitated by local school leaders.
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Participants access online learning and support via our virtual learning environment (VLE) Canvas. Through Canvas, participants are able to engage with learning communities of peers, access multimedia content, research and expert school-led practice aligned to the curriculum content for the qualification and receive high-quality feedback from experienced performance coaches. and submit work for assessment.
Online-only Delivery Model
NPQSL participants can choose to complete the programme via our virtual online delivery model. This delivery model includes virtual live events to replace face-to-face events.
NPQSL Delivery Structure
Who is this for?
The National Professional Qualification for Senior Leadership (NPQSL) is for school leaders who are, or are aspiring to be, a senior leader with cross-school responsibilities.
Although the role varies, many senior leaders contribute to all aspects of the school through the leadership team as well as having a specific whole school responsibility of their own. This means the role is often both operational and strategic and relies on working with and through colleagues (in particular, through middle leaders) to ensure every pupil gets an excellent education.
What does it cost?
Fees to be confirmed
National Professional Qualification (NPQ): Senior Leadership Framework
In collaboration with an Expert Advisory Group, the Department for Education consulted extensively with the sector to design the reformed suite of NPQs. This has included invaluable input from teachers, school and trust leaders, academics and experts.
The frameworks set out two types of content. Within each area, key evidence statements (“Learn that…”) have been drawn from current high-quality evidence from the UK and overseas. This evidence includes high-quality reviews and syntheses, including metaanalyses and rigorous individual studies. In addition, the NPQ frameworks provide practical guidance on the skills that teachers and school/trust leaders should be supported to develop. Practice statements (“Learn how to…”) draw on both the best available educational research and on additional guidance from the Expert Advisory Group and other sector representatives.
The Education Endowment Foundation has independently reviewed the frameworks to ensure they draw on the best available evidence and that this evidence has been interpreted with fidelity. The NPQ frameworks will be kept under review as the evidence base evolves. As in any profession, the evidence base is not static and research insights develop and progress.
School Culture | |
Learn that… | Learn how to… |
1. High-quality teaching has a long-term positive effect on pupils’ life chances, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. 2. Teacher expectations can affect pupil outcomes; setting goals that challenge and stretch pupils is essential. 3. Setting clear expectations can help communicate shared values that improve classroom and school culture. 4. Teachers have the ability to affect and improve the wellbeing, motivation and behaviour of their pupils. 5. Teachers are key role models, who can influence the attitudes, values and behaviours of their pupils. 6. Teachers can influence pupils’ resilience and beliefs about their ability to succeed, by ensuring all pupils have the opportunity to experience meaningful success. 7. A culture of mutual trust and respect between colleagues fosters effective relationships and supportive professional environments. 8. Building alignment of staff around the intended school culture can create coherence in a school and give direction and purpose to the staff’s work teaching pupils. |
Contribute to establishing and sustaining the school’s strategic direction, including by: Contribute to establishing and sustaining an effective culture across the school, including by: |
Teaching | |
Learn that… | Learn how to… |
1. Learning involves a lasting change in pupils’ capabilities or 9. Long-term memory can be considered as a store of |
Establish and sustain effective planning and preparation across the school, including by: Support colleagues to explain and model effectively, including by: Ensure teaching across the school stimulates pupil thinking and understanding, including by: |
Curriculum and Assessment | |
Learn that… | Learn how to… |
1. A school’s curriculum enables it to set out the knowledge, skills and values that its pupils will learn, encompassing the national curriculum within a coherent wider vision for successful learning. 2. School subjects are their own distinct disciplines which have reference points in disciplines and practices beyond the school. 3. The potential content of many subjects (especially literature, humanities and arts) is contestable and requires thoughtful, sustained review and engagement with that subject discipline. 4. Secure subject knowledge helps teachers to motivate pupils and teach effectively. 5. Ensuring pupils master foundational concepts and knowledge before moving on is likely to build pupils’ confidence and help them succeed. 6. Anticipating common misconceptions within particular subjects is also an important aspect of curricular knowledge; working closely with colleagues to develop an understanding of likely misconceptions is valuable. |
Support colleagues to design a carefully sequenced, broad and coherent curricula, including by: Support colleagues to develop pupils’ literacy, including by: • Identifying technical vocabulary across subjects and working with colleagues to ensure that these words are Support colleagues to provide high-quality feedback, including by: Encourage colleagues to use assessment that is high-quality and as reliable as possible without creating unnecessary workload, including by: |
Behaviour | |
Learn that… | Learn how to… |
1. While classroom-level strategies have a big impact on 7. Teaching model behaviours will reduce the need to actual stage of development, can affect their behaviour in |
Support the development of a positive, predictable and safe environment for pupils, including by: Support colleagues to create a positive, predictable and safe environment in their classrooms, including by: Motivate, and enable colleagues to motivate pupils, including by: Contribute to a whole school approach in assisting pupils who need more intensive support with their behaviour, including by: ● Identifying and applying specialist knowledge to policies and regulations relating to SEND (including reasonable adjustments), looked after children, children who have a social worker, safeguarding and exclusions. Prevent and respond to bullying, including by: |
Additional and Special Educational Needs and Disabilities | |
Learn that… | Learn how to… |
1. The SEND Code of Practice (2015) and Equality Act 6. Seeking to understand pupils’ differences, including their |
Ensure all pupils experience success, including by: Support colleagues to adapt their teaching to different pupil needs, including by: Support colleagues to meet individual needs without creating unnecessary workload, including by: Ensure pupils are grouped effectively (across subjects and within individual classrooms), including by: |
Professional Development | |
Learn that… | Learn how to… |
1. Helping teachers improve through evidence-based 12. All schools with early career teachers undertaking |
Ensure colleagues take part in effective professional development, including by: Conduct, and support colleagues to conduct, regular expertled conversations (which could be referred to as mentoring or coaching) about all aspects of teaching, including by: |
Organisational Management | |
Learn that… | Learn how to… |
1. Leaders have a duty of care to pupils and staff. 2. All staff have a responsibility to provide a safe environment in which children can learn. 3. Schools and colleges and their staff are an important part of the wider safeguarding system for children. 4. Good financial, human and educational resource management, strategic planning, employee relations and risk management are the foundations of a good school. 5. Schools are public bodies and so have a duty to use all public money in the public interest. 6. Different types of schools are funded through different mechanisms. Each mechanism has different financial regulations associated with it. 7. Different types of employees have different terms and conditions. 8. A senior leader should play a major role in managing staff and resources under the overall direction of the headteacher. |
Contribute to the protection and safety of pupils and colleagues, including by: Contribute to effective systems, processes and policies for managing admissions, exclusions and appeals, including by: ● Contributing to best practice in planning, commissioning and monitoring alternative provision. Contribute to the prioritisation, allocation and management of resources (including financial, human and educational) to ● Where relevant, contribute to developing a technology infrastructure that is good value for money, supports school operations and teaching, and is safe and secure. Recruit, develop, support and appropriately manage colleagues (including non-teaching colleagues), including by: Contribute to the identification, management and mitigation of risk, including by: |
Implementation | |
Learn that… | Learn how to… |
1. Implementation is an ongoing process that must adapt to 10. A school’s capacity to implement an approach is rarely |
Plan and execute implementation in stages by: • Developing a clear, logical and well specified implementation plan, and using this plan to build collective understanding and ownership of the approach. • Continuing to model, acknowledge, support, recognise and reward good practice. |
Working in Partnership | |
Learn that… | Learn how to… |
1. Good relationships and partnerships are a foundation of a good school. 2. Building effective relationships with parents, carers and families can improve pupils’ motivation, behaviour and academic success. 3. There is an established link between the home learning environment at all ages and children’s performance at school. However, evidence on effective strategies that schools can use to engage parents/carers in their children’s education is mixed. 4. If the aim is solely to improve academic outcomes, classroom interventions working directly with children currently have more evidence of effectiveness at improving educational outcomes than parenting interventions with the same aim. 5. Working effectively with parents/carers can be challenging, and is likely to require sustained effort and support. 6. Sharing effective practice between schools, and building capacity and effective mechanisms for doing so, is key to closing the attainment gap. To improve performance school leaders need to collaborate and work with colleagues and other relevant professionals within and beyond the school, including relevant external agencies |
Work in partnership with parents and carers, including by: Contribute to working in partnership with other schools and school trusts alongside the community and other organisations including professional associations and local authorities, including by: |
Governance and Accountability | |
Learn that… | Learn how to… |
1. High quality effective and ethical governance is key to success in our school system. 2. Different types of school structures have different governance and accountability arrangements. Each set of arrangements has different regulations and statutory duties and therefore different policies, processes and systems associated with it. 3. School leaders are accountable for their decisions and actions and must submit themselves to the scrutiny necessary to ensure this. 4. School leaders have a responsibility to ensure that staff know, understand and are held to account for their professional responsibilities. |
Begin to appropriately participate in governance, and fulfil obligations to give account, be challenged, and accept responsibility, including by: Begin to appropriately participate in and fulfil obligations to external organisations including the Department for Education, Ofsted, the Education and Skills Funding Agency, Local Authority and auditors, including by: ● Applying a good understanding of the law, statutory |