Early Headship Coaching Offer for new headteachers (EHCO)

Our Early Headship Coaching Offer is a course which offers the opportunity for new headteachers to work with an experienced colleague to face the challenges that early headship can bring.

The content can be tailored to your needs in response to the challenges you are facing. Each term you will choose a persistent problem of school leadership to focus on.

Over the duration of the course you will focus on three persistent problems, choosing from:

• School culture: Establishing a professional and supportive school culture and encouraging staff to contribute.
• Learning and development: Ensuring effective approaches to professional learning and development.
• Curriculum: Organising and teaching the curriculum.
• Behaviour: Attending to pupil behaviour and wider circumstances.
• School improvement: Analysing and diagnosing problems, planning and implementing strategies for continuous educational improvement.
• Administration: Managing an efficient and effective organisation.

The persistent problems you select will guide and inform your inputs, which are:

• Coaching with an expert leader,
• a school visit to a relevant setting,
• an online community to connect with your peers.

These inputs are designed to help you overcome challenges in your setting.

Choose our Early Headship Coaching Offer and you’ll be joining over 40,000 teachers and school leaders (as of May 2026), who have decided on Ambition to complete their NPQ since they were launched in 2021.

Our EHCO provides you with tailored, personalised support to apply knowledge from the NPQH to your school context.

We have designed this support offer for new headteachers to accompany the NPQ in Headship, to help you put the evidence and expertise from your NPQH into practice in your school setting.

Benefit from expert guidance
Over three terms, you'll receive guidance from an experienced, serving headteacher who works in a similar setting or phase, to help you apply expertise from the NPQH, to overcome the challenges and complex problems you face in your day-to-day role.

Train to your timetable
Our 'little and often' approach often means you can engage with the EHCO around your busy timetable, with minimal time needed out of school.

No assessment
There is no formal assessment for the EHCO. So, you can focus entirely on practically applying your learning.

Join our charitable mission
We support teachers and school leaders at every stage of their careers, helping them to keep getting better. We are a charity providing training and professional development based on the most rigorous research and evidence about what really works.

You can take advantage of the Early Headship Coaching Offer at the same time as doing the new NPQ for Headship.

New headteachers are suitable for this targeted support package if you meet all these criteria:

• are in your first five years of headship
• have previously completed an NPQH, are applying for an NPQH, or are currently doing an NPQH with us or another NPQ provider.

We find that the headteachers who benefit most from this programme are those who clearly communicate with their trust/school that they will need some fixed time to complete EHCO activities.

If you have any questions, email [email protected] and a member of our team will be in touch with next steps.

For Autumn 2026, all applicants from state-funded schools in England are eligible for a fully funded place on the Early Headship Coaching Offer.

• In your first five years of headship.
• Have previously completed an NPQH, are applying for an NPQH, or are currently doing an NPQH with us or another NPQ provider.
• Work in a state funded school in England.

Check if you’re eligible!
If you're unsure whether you will qualify for funding, please use our online eligibility check tool.

If you don't work in an eligible school, the Early Headship Coaching Offer costs £800 plus VAT.

Get in touch to find out more here.

*Currently nurseries are not available yet on the tool. If you work in a nursery, please contact us directly at [email protected]

Join a local cohort with one of our regional partners and benefit from our expert curriculum design along with a tailored experience linked to your local context.

If you are unable to find a local cohort, you can join Ambition’s national cohort and gain a national network of peers. Either way, we work to give you the best possible experience.

Find a cohort that’s local to you in our list of partners here.

Applications are now open for November 2026. Apply by 22 October 2026. Start your application here >>

Don’t wait! There is no DfE funded spring 2027 cohort across all NPQ providers. So, there’s only one chance to start this academic year!

DfE registration: Until you've completed a DfE registration, available from 23 June 2026, your registration and funding will not be confirmed. You can now register here.

If you have any questions, email [email protected] and a member of our team will be in touch with next steps.

We’re proud to be the largest provider of NPQs in England.

As an education charity, this helps our mission to support more teachers and school leaders serving children from disadvantaged backgrounds to keep getting better.

From our recent participant survey*, we heard that:

• 94% of participants agreed that their Ambition NPQ had helped them to develop their expertise as a school leader.
• 92% of participants agreed that as a result of their Ambition NPQ, they felt better equipped to carry out their current role.
• 93% of leaders agreed that staff completing an Ambition NPQ had supported their school to improve.

You can read more about what our NPQ participants have said here >>

*taken from our 2025 NPQ participant surveys.