黑料不打烊

The government is conducting a review of the These are government-backed qualifications delivered by approved providers. They include the NPQ for headteachers (the NPQH), but also other leadership qualifications such as Leading Primary Maths and Leading Literacy. As is being conducted by some of the same appointed experts who drew up the current frameworks, in our view the process risks reinforcing existing assumptions and therefore we believe it is timely to undertake an alternative evaluation. Here, we present some of our analysis, which questions how selected NPQ frameworks portray school leadership.

Setting the scene

Our colleague Professor Linda Evans breaks professional learning down into three dimensions: the behavioural, attitudinal and intellectual (Evans, 2014). Readers will benefit from looking in-depth at her framework, but put simply: the ‘behavioural’ concerns the processes and procedures that people apply to their work; the ‘attitudinal’ is about self-perception and motivations; and the ‘intellectual’ is about analytical reasoning. According to Evans, change needs to occur in an individual across all three dimensions for professional learning to be truly impactful. This gave us a means to examine NPQs as leadership preparation systematically.

We identified the three NPQs receiving the fullest funding offer from government (the , the and the and conducted a document analysis using Evans’ framework. The NPQH and SEND qualifications are both explicitly classed as ‘’, and the Maths NPQ is aimed at existing subject leaders or those who wish to become leaders. Below, we give examples from our analysis, discussing how leaders and their development are portrayed in the documents.

Portrait of a leader

‘Our analysis suggests that the NPQ frameworks portray school leadership in a somewhat two-dimensional manner.’

Our analysis suggests that the NPQ frameworks portray school leadership in a somewhat two-dimensional manner.

In the foreground, we see a heavy weighting towards the ‘behavioural’. NPQs tell school leaders how to act, how to speak, how to teach. They emphasise setting a ‘culture’, ‘correct’ language, and ascribe specific pedagogies like ‘maths mastery’ and ‘modelling’. This aligns with Evans’ framework, although only if leaders accept these methods as a ‘better way’ (Evans, 2014, p. 191) than their previous practice.

In the midground is the ‘attitudinal’. The NPQ frameworks all emphasise that school leaders should enable students to ‘thrive’ in school – and of course they should. However, the emphasis on ‘later academic success’ denies school leaders the chance to promote other types of fulfilment. Evans’ framework suggests that tapping into personal motivations is essential to developing school leaders, yet only a narrow ideology about the purposes of education is promoted by NPQs.

Finally, although not entirely out of frame, the ‘intellectual’ element of Evans’ framework lacks sharp focus in the NPQ frameworks. NPQs are underpinned by the ‘best available evidence’ according to the government-backed research institute the (EEF). However, the repetitive reference lists at the end of each document indicate that the research the EEF has decided should underpin the NPQs is largely its own. This is important because Evans’ framework emphasises developing the critical thinking and professional judgment that we believe school leaders should have, but presenting a limited, unbalanced evidence base undermines this.

A broader canvas

We believe that the government needs to look more broadly at the bigger picture when rethinking NPQs and how they develop school leaders. As we point out in we are not questioning the credentials of the expert panel, or the value of EEF research (Innes et al., 2025). However, we think that a fuller, more meaningful consultation than is being offered would bring some benefits. Embracing a more diverse range of research and perspectives on leadership would offer a critical third dimension to NPQs: one that foregrounds analytical reasoning and personal motivations, as advocated by Evans’ framework (2014).

Rethinking NPQs would not solve the teaching profession’s well-documented issues with retention of teachers and school leaders, of course. However, suggests fulfilling professional development could keep some teachers in the profession longer. The forthcoming government review needs to give NPQs more than just a lick of paint, and render a more realistic, three-dimensional portrait of school leadership.

This blog post is based on the article by Mark Innes, Elizabeth Gregory and Louisa Dawes, published in the British Educational Research Journal.

References

Evans, L. (2014). Leadership for professional development and learning: Enhancing our understanding of how teachers develop. Cambridge Journal of Education, 44(2), 179–198.

Innes, M., Gregory, E., & Dawes, L. (2025). Re-thinking teachers’ professional development: An analysis of National Professional Qualifications for school leaders in England. British Educational Research Journal. Advance online publication.