Since September 2021, Ambition Institute has welcomed teachers and school leaders from across the country onto our National Professional Qualification (NPQ) programmes.
This article explores the National Professional Qualification for Leading Teacher Development (NPQLTD) and how it can equip you to lead professional development across your school setting.
Professional development for teacher educators
Leading the development of teachers is complex. That’s true whether you are supporting trainees through their Initial Teacher Training, mentoring Early Career Teachers, or designing CPD for experienced teaching staff.
However, many teachers who progress into leadership roles haven’t had any formal training in teacher education.
The NPQ for Leading Teacher Development fills that gap, bringing together the knowledge and skills to help you make classroom teaching in your school the best it can be.
Drawing on cutting-edge research, our NPQLTD programme is designed to help you build your expertise and develop your practice as a teacher educator.
By identifying areas for development, nurturing best practice, and creating the conditions for learning, you can support teachers to develop their skills, leading to improved pupil outcomes.
The impact of high-quality CPD
At Ambition Institute, our mission is to tackle educational disadvantage, and we do this the way we think works best: by developing teachers and leaders to be the best they can be.
Research tells us that high-quality CPD has a significant effect on pupil outcomes (Zuccollo & Fletcher-Wood, 2020), and that improving the performance of serving teachers is three times more effective in raising standards than other kinds of intervention. (Sutton Trust, 2011)
Evidence also suggests that most teachers stop improving after the first five to ten years of their career, but that effective professional development can prevent this plateau and enable teachers to keep getting better. (Kraft & Papay, 2014).
This means training teacher educators to champion high-quality teaching. It means giving them the tools and knowledge to ensure that school-based CPD is as effective and impactful as possible.
The programme content
All of our NPQ programmes have been designed in line with the Department for Education’s NPQ framework, forming part of the golden thread of teacher training and development.
This means that everyone, from early career teachers to school and system leaders, is building and developing their practice from the same evidence-based framework.
The NPQLTD framework is divided into the following components:
- Teaching
- Teacher learning
- The what
- The how
- Enabling conditions
- Implementation
In short, the NPQLTD framework has been designed to empower you to deliver effective professional development in your context.
But what does it mean in practice?
It means becoming a teaching expert, using the latest research and evidence.
It means gaining the knowledge and skills to create confident and effective teachers and leaders.
It means developing the knowledge and insight to champion quality teaching in your school.
It means learning evidence-backed mechanisms that successfully drive behaviour change.
It means building the right conditions for teacher development to take place.
It means understanding how to drive and sustain professional development in your setting.
It means investing in teachers and nurturing the next generation of teaching talent.
Most of all, it means working to provide young people with high-quality learning and support to thrive, no matter what their background.
How long is the programme?
The NPQLTD lasts 12 months, during which you will engage in a mixture of live, facilitated sessions and self-directed learning that can fit around your responsibilities.
You will also take part in:
- One full day conference (lasting six hours).
- Six courses (each course lasts six weeks).
- Each course includes six modules.
- Five two-hour online clinics (facilitated sessions).
- One two-hour assessment clinic.
- Six online communities (one-hour group sessions).
The learning activities have been designed to fit around your busy schedule and will take between one and two hours a week.
There are no projects for you to write up. Instead, the course is assessed through an open-book style response to a short case study. The three-month assessment window takes place at the end of the programme. You have eight days to complete the assessment, and if needed it can be attempted twice.
All our materials are carefully designed to ensure that any time you invest is beneficial to the development of expertise.
You will have access to Steplab, the innovative learning platform specifically designed for teacher education. Watch the video below to see how it works.
You can find out more about Steplab in this blog.
Who is eligible?
The programme is designed for teachers who have, or are aspiring to have, responsibility for leading other educators to develop. You might support all teachers in your school, trainees or those early in their career.
Suitable roles include:
- Classroom teacher
- Head of department, phase, key stage or subject
- Head of teaching development or CPD lead
- Deputy or assistant headteacher
- Headteacher or principal
The spring 2024 cohorts may be the last to be fully funded by the Department for Education. Register your interest now to hear about future NPQ cohorts.
Where can I apply?
To learn more about the NPQLTD, or to enquire about joining the programme, visit our programme page here.