National Professional Qualifications
Manor Teaching School Hub has partnered with one of the key national providers, Ambition Institute, to deliver the complete range of NPQs for you at one of our local centres.
The programmes are blended, maximising your time with virtual clinics throughout the duration of the programme but also by bringing you and your peers together for face to face conference and clinic sessions.
You will have access to Ambition’s excellent virtual learning system, Steplab, to work through short “Learn” and “Apply” learning activities, all underpinned by the best available educational research. Our facilitators are local leaders with highly relevant school experience and great facilitation skills to guide you through the accredited material.
Register your personal interest in any of the NPQ programmes here.
If you are a school leader you may wish to look at the DFE’s NPQ Brochure detailing all of the programmes.
Or you can click here to download a presentation with more detail on all of the NPQs which you can use with your school team.
The deadline for recruitment for the February 2024 cohort is the 16th January 2024.
What our Cohort are saying:
Our recent survey showed that this impact is widespread across participants from all of the programmes.
When Can I Begin?
The NPQ programmes commence in October and February each year and in most cases we will be hosting at least one cohort of each programme, or we work with our partners to ensure that you can attend the programme locally. Click on each of the boxes below to find out more about your selected course. In some cases there are eligibility criteria to attend the programmes. Click here to read more about selection and eligibility and also how your recruitment data is used.
Is there a cost?
The DFE have announced the new funding approach for National Professional Qualifications from Autumn 2024.
The following NPQ programmes will be fully-funded for all state funded schools and eligible nursery settings:
• NPQH and the Early Headship Coaching Offer
• NPQ for Leading Primary Maths
• NEW NPQ for SEND
All other NPQs will be funded for schools considered to be serving disadvantaged communities. The criteria for assessing this will be:
• Schools in the top 50% of schools with the highest proportion of pupils who attract pupil premium funding;
• 16 to 19 settings identified as having high disadvantage; or
• highly disadvantaged early years settings.
What learning will I access?
At the beginning you will undertake an online orientation session to help you to navigate the programme. Your NPQ will then start with a Conference (which we aim to run face to face depending upon the current guidance). On a weekly basis you will access a short online learning activity on StepLab and then reflect on this with a buddy who is also on the programme. On a half-termly basis you will then participate in on-line clinics which consolidate and develop the online learning you have been undertaking and you will join an on-line community, where you will discuss current challenges with your peers. Unlike previous NPQs there is no in-school project. Instead, the “Apply” elements on Steplab and the Communities are designed to encourage you to implement your learning on an incremental basis, putting research and new ideas into practice as you go.
What if I can't continue on the programme?
Whilst we expect participants to plan to complete their programme in its entirety, we understand that there may be extenuating circumstances which may impact your ability to do so. In these circumstances, we want to support you to successfully complete the programme which may include offering deferral. Examples of circumstances where a deferral may be offered include Illness and/or health-related issues and leaves of absence; Maternity/paternity; Bereavement or changes to personal circumstances which impact your ability to fully engage and other occurrences which are out of your control which could not have been foreseen or planned for, and which impact your completion. If instead of deferring you choose to withdraw from the programme you must understand that this will mean in the future you will be unable to access DFE funding for the NPQ programme. Click here to see the deferral and withdrawal policies in full.
How is this assessed?
Importantly you need to complete the course with 90% engagement to qualify for the NPQ accreditation. Catchup material is available should you miss conferences or clinics due to illness. At the end of your programme you will be given an eight-day window to sit an ‘open book’ style assessment in which you will respond to a short case study. There are two assessment windows every year, and participants can sit the assessment two times, if they need to. We will offer a webinar and live clinic in advance of the assessment window to support you. Click here for relevant policies on NPQ Assessment.
Apply.
You will need to apply to the DFE for this qualification (which is important for securing your funding) as well as apply to your chosen provider. We hope that you will choose Manor Teaching School Hub as your local provider supporting schools in Walsall, Wolverhampton and South Staffs. If you are outside of our area but have been recommended to us through your multi-academy trust then you are also welcome to join us.
The first step in the application process is to register your interest at this link, we will register you with Ambition Institute and they will contact you to start the process. Key steps in the application process can be seen on this diagram.
