Headship
For school leaders who are, or are aspiring to be, a headteacher or head of school with responsibility for leading a school.
Course Overview
| Registration date | October-January. Participants can register with the Department for Education from October and will be prompted to complete a short application with UCL |
| Start date | February |
| Course length | 18 months |
| Accreditation | UCL/Department for Education (DfE) |
| Fees | State School participants will receive sponsorship from DfE. The fee for self-funded or Independent School participants is £1985. Please note that anyone receiving DfE sponsorship will not be permitted to withdraw and then restart the same NPQ. |
Course Curriculum
This 18-month course will help staff gain confidence and develop skills in:
- leadership knowledge and the specialist expertise needed to tackle school improvement priorities
- supporting the development of a positive, predictable and safe environment for pupils and staff
- leading your school’s strategic direction and establishing an environment for pupil and staff success
- helping ensure staff feel supported and valued.
Leaders will get to train alongside peers with similar responsibilities. The course content focuses on the key challenges senior leaders and heads face in their role.
Leaders and education experts designed this course to fit around busy leadership responsibilities. There’s no project work and minimal time out of school required.
What you'll learn
This course covers themes including:
- School Culture – you will establish and sustain an effective school culture by setting the strategic direction, managing human and financial resources and fulfilling all statutory duties to enable a sustainable and thriving school community.
- Teaching – you will learn how to establish and support effective teaching across your school to develop and embed your teacher’s pedagogical knowledge and classroom skills to enable the best outcomes for all children and young people no matter what their starting point is.
- Curriculum and Assessment – you will learn how to support and sustain high quality planning, teaching, learning and assessment by ensuring the implementation of effective and coherent policies. Appropriate and well-designed professional development for the teachers in your school will align with these priorities.
- Behaviour and Support – you will be able to establish and sustain high standards of behaviour and learning across the whole school community, including liaising with and training key stakeholders to ensure a safe, inclusive learning environment for all.
- Implementation – you will learn how to implement change successfully within your context by understanding the stages of implementation and aligning it with wider school improvement priorities.
How you'll learn
We offer a combination of online sessions with three face-to-face conferences in a central UK location. Our online sessions are carefully facilitated to allow a significant portion of time in Peer Learning Groups, incorporating plenty of discussion, reflection and expert input. For our face-to-face conferences, participants are welcomed at one of our centrally located campuses and these events include a full day of hospitality, an expert guest speaker and valuable networking opportunities.
“It was a pleasure leading a session on school partnerships with such an engaged and committed group of school leaders. Sharing their diverse experiences and expectations of partnerships brought a real richness to the discussion – and some really insightful questions. I look forward to working with you again.”
Christina Astin
Education Consultant, who provided expert practitioner insight
Assessment
Assessment
Your questions answered
Louisa Horner is CATS Global Schools’ Learning & Development Lead. She has completed her own NPQ in Senior Leadership and leads the facilitation of NPQs for CATS Global Schools, so can share insight into the learning experience and time commitments. Here she answers your most frequently asked questions.
NPQs on offer
Leading Teacher Development
For teachers who have, or are aspiring to have, responsibilities for leading the development of other teachers, curriculum leads, mentors or trainees in their school.
Senior Leadership
For school leaders who are or are aspiring to be a senior leader with cross-school responsibilities
Headship
For school leaders who are, or are aspiring to be, a headteacher or head of school with responsibility for leading a school.
