How to maximise the impact of NPQs in your school

Choosing to support a colleague to complete an NPQ programme is a big commitment for any school leader, but particularly so in times of ever tighter resource and staffing constraints. With the right support, though, you will see an enormous benefit to this commitment.

Here are a few ways you could support participants to have impact right away in your setting:

1) Release them

This is the tricky one – when cover is tight, it can be tempting to look to the requests and seize the opportunity for another warm body in the building. Resist the temptation! NPQ programmes with the NIoT require limited time away from the classroom, so allowing colleagues to attend when they need to is the first step to them having enhanced impact in school

2) Line management

Make sure line managers are aware of any colleagues on NPQs, and have built time into their regular catch-ups to check in on how it is going and share any relevant learning.

3) Identify action (and inaction)

As part of this conversation, line managers should be supporting colleagues to identify any key actions they could take as a result of their learning. This might be things they will approach differently, or new ways of doing something. It is important to note that sometimes a beneficial result of training is to also identify things to stop doing, or replace with a better way – doing more is not always the answer, particularly in the already packed school day

4) Share the learning

Ask colleagues to share their learning when they come back from a day or have a session. Not only does this ensure others can benefit from their learning, but this is also an opportunity to check and correct any misconceptions that might have arison and prevent colleagues “going rogue” and trying to implement proposals that might not work for your setting or your current priorities.

Some school leaders reserve time on their SLT agenda for participants to share their key learning and implementation plans, which can be a great way to both hold people to account for having impact as a result of the time and resource that has been invested in their training, and also to ensure they are put in a position to be able to enact some of the things they think will have genuine benefit to pupils and colleagues in your school

5) Connect participants

If you have multiple members of staff completing programmes, ensure you provide structured opportunities for those individuals to meet and share their learning. Different NPQs share an evidence base and language, so putting these individuals together will help them to see opportunities for improving practices in school. Together, they have a good chance of ensuring their learning has impact and can take root through real in-school action.

6) Quantify the impact

Finally, through your regular conversations with participants, identify measures that will be used to gauge impact in your school. Allow participants to define any key metrics they might use to judge how successful their plans have been in school – it could be attendance data for a key year group, or perhaps they design a staff survey to track changing attitudes to professional development. This will support colleagues to be clear about what impact looks like, as well as to hold them to account for implementing improvements back at base.

For more information on our NPQs, click here

This article is based on an article in TES published as 6 ways to track the impact of training and leadership - you can read the full article here.