The National Professional Qualifications (NPQ) frameworks reflect the foundational knowledge and skills needed to be an effective teacher or school leader.
They offer a range of professional development options which support teachers and school leaders across England at every stage of their career. Whether you lead a subject, year group, area of learning, whole school or a trust, the NPQs have benefits for you.
As a lead provider of the NPQs, we’re always working with schools, trusts and our partners to understand the potential that NPQs have and how we can help leaders to make links between the programmes and their practice.
Here are six questions that we get asked about the National Professional Qualifications:
- How do I know which NPQ to do?
- Are NPQs useful if you want a promotion?
- Can I do an NPQ if I’ve already done one?
- What will I learn on an NPQ?
- Will an NPQ be relevant to my setting?
- What are the benefits of doing an NPQ?
How do I know which NPQ to do?
Choosing the best NPQ for you might be driven by a personal area of interest, a desire to support your career progression or a need to develop your knowledge in a role you're already in. To make a good decision it's useful to understand what NPQs are on offer.
There are two types of NPQs: the leadership NPQs and the specialist NPQs.
If you are interested in getting a more general understanding of the knowledge needed to be a school leader, you can choose from the NPQ for Headship or the NPQ for Senior Leadership depending on your current role. If you are or aspire to be a trust leader or executive headteacher, there's the NPQ for Executive leadership. There are also NPQs for Early Years Leadership and SENCOs which prepare you for leading in more specialised settings. These include general content paired with more specialist knowledge.
There are five specialist NPQs which are designed for leaders at every level to dig deeper into leading teaching, leading teacher development, leading behaviour and culture, leading literacy and leading primary maths. In these you will dive into the evidence base to support you with leadership of a specialist area in your school. They're great for aspiring leaders or people in roles such as head of year or head of department or subject lead. If you are a school leader, specialist NPQs are also beneficial to support you to lead in domains across a whole school or trust.
You might choose to do an NPQ as an individual, or as part of a group taking NPQs within a school or across a trust. Find out about the advantages of having multiple staff doing NPQs together.
Are NPQs useful if you want a promotion?
The NPQs are not designed to be just rungs on the promotion ladder, although the NPQs can be used for a variety of reasons. They provide options for educators with all sorts of plans, aspirations and goals.
Some people might use NPQs to support them to make progress in their career by developing shared knowledge, understanding and language ready to take on leadership responsibilities. Others access NPQs to build knowledge within an existing role - for example mentors for trainee or early career teachers might do NPQs to support their own professional knowledge on how to be the best mentor they can be. And others take NPQs to develop knowledge to support leadership of a particular area of need in schools like literacy, behaviour or maths.
NPQs provide a set of professional development pathways that give teachers and leaders at different stages of their careers to develop knowledge and skills in ways that match their aspirations. This means all educators have options for high-quality, evidence-informed, practical professional development.
Can I do another NPQ if I’ve already done one?
Yes. If you have already completed an NPQ (before or after 2020) you can do another, so long as you have completed any previous NPQ before starting the next one. You cannot receive scholarship funding for the same reformed NPQ again if you previously withdrew from or failed the programme. You can check the latest funding information to understand what funding you are eligible for.
You could start with a leadership NPQ and move on to a specialist NPQ, or start with a specialist NPQ before doing a leadership NPQ.
What will I learn on an NPQ?
NPQs are designed to build your expertise to guide evidence-informed decision-making in your role. There are lots of opportunities to apply knowledge to context through examples, scenarios and discussion with your peers.
Across all NPQs you will also learn what makes effective professional development and implementation, because it is important you know how to put knowledge into action in ways that are likely to have a lasting impact.
Programme content builds on the foundation of the NPQ frameworks and content is designed in consultation and collaboration with experts in the sector, schools and trusts so that it reflects expertise in action.
Will an NPQ be relevant to my setting?
While some NPQ content is the same for everyone, there are plenty of opportunities to choose tasks and discussions, and engage with examples that will help you to understand how content is applicable in your setting .
In every module, the apply part of a course gives you a selection of follow up tasks like reading, reviewing practice in your setting or working with colleagues to understand how content is applicable. You'll also work with a buddy and this will provide opportunity for discussion and for making links between the content and your school. Clinics give you opportunities to work with a wider group and expert facilitators to understand knowledge in action, while in communities you can problem solve around relevant issues specific to your setting.
Throughout the programme, you will notice that video content , examples and scenarios draw on a balance of primary, secondary and all-through schools. If you are doing the Early Years Leadership NPQ, examples are used from a variety of private, voluntary and independent and school-based settings. The NPQ for SENCOs uses specialist settings and specialist in mainstream examples. The programmes deliberately provide examples from a range of settings so you can understand how knowledge plays out in different ways in different places, and understand what's most likely to make things work at a deeper level, rather than relying on superficial features.
Find out more about how you learn on an NPQ.
What are the benefits of doing an NPQ?
NPQs benefit leaders in schools whatever your starting point. There are plenty of opportunities to learn: this includes formal knowledge to build your understanding of the evidence base in the topic you're studying. You also gain informal knowledge that comes from working with facilitators and peers, and an understanding of how to enact change in your setting. The NPQs create connections between you and peers: you get networks that last beyond the NPQs and materials that you can use immediately or revisit over time in your leadership journey. As part of the golden thread, the frameworks which underpin NPQs make clear links to initial teacher training and early career training, and are a great way of building shared knowledge across schools or trusts.
