Teachers Notebook

A few years ago, I applied for a position of ‘Lead Practioner’ at a local school. On the day of the interview whilst we sat waiting to be called in for our formal interview, I listened to the other candidates talking about their NPQ. I hadn’t heard about these courses and soon realised hold on, I’ve become stagnant in my career.

I’m now in my third school, I’ve been teaching for 17 years whilst raising my family and yes, I admit teaching took the back seat for me in my priorities. I have never stopped enjoying my time in the classroom and I always strive to be the best that I can be but whilst my daughters were young and during their time at primary school, they were always at the top of my priority list. When I was asked at the start of my PGCE ‘Where do you see yourself in 10 years?’ I confidently said ‘Head of Science’. But life has just passed on by. In my 2 previous school’s I was a cog in the wheel of the science department. No main responsibility, no whole school involvement, just pushing myself to do a good job each day. I was never approached to complete outside additional CPD and now I’m thinking should I have gone and looked myself?

So back to me hearing about NPQ’s for the first time, I went back to my own school after not securing the Lead Practioner role and started to look at what I can do to further my own learning. Our school has a well-structured CPD programme however I wanted more. I asked our Assistant Head Teacher in charge of CPD ‘Can I do the NPQLT?’ and the reply was yes. I currently have the role of Second in Science and felt that this course was designed to help me to become a leader of teaching within our department. First step complete and now I was excited for the next chapter to begin.

I enrolled in the Ambition Institute NPQLT facilitated by the local school teaching hub. The welcome conference was held in person as a whole day introduction to the logistics of the course and how the learning modules will be set out. The programme follows the DfE NPQ national framework and there are 6 modules to the course:

1. Cuture and Learning
2. Assessment
3. Instruction
4. Subject and Curriculum
5. Professional Development
6. Implementation

Each module is delivered remotely through the Steplab platform and they involve a study component and then an apply session to follow.

The self-guided study modules first explore educational research within that area. This is the section I enjoy the most. Being able to explore the reasoning and science behind the theory. Also, it has opened my eyes to the wealth of educational research that I haven’t seen since my undergraduate years. Each study has been carefully selected and then discussed so it also saves me time trawling through scientific journals – I lived opposite the library when I was at uni because I spent so much time there. We would hide the course textbooks on the shelfs and let each other know where they were. The internet wasn’t as accessible as it is today.

After the research summary, there are 2 sections of case studies, one where the answers are modelled and the other which you respond to. These cases studies can be based within any Key Stage phase or subject setting so initially it did feel confusing exploring a primary school leaders actions however soon you begin to look past that and at the principles behind the decision.

The online self-guided sections also have a fortnightly apply section between each study. Ambition set you up with a buddy from the course which you should contact fortnightly to work through the apply with. However, in my opinion this just doesn’t work. Life in school is crazy and this course is meant to be manageable in terms of workload however I was unable to meet up with my buddy as our timetables don’t match and also my time at home with my family is precious. A fortnightly call after the working day does not fit in with cooking the family dinner and being mum taxi to my daughters’ activities. Whilst I am fully committed to this course this structure is not achievable. Zoom calls take it up so much admin and ‘chit chat’ time that I couldn’t fit into my day. Luckily, I had a colleague who was also completing the NPQLT in school, so we caught up fortnightly during one of our frees to complete the apply sections. During these you recap and discuss your responses to the case studies and then select an action task, which often for me was additional reading.

Alongside these study modules there were 5 online clinics where the facilitator held a study session live on zoom where we got involved and then 3 communities. These communities are more of a networking and action planning meeting – asking other colleagues on the course to help you with obstacles you might currently have in your role. Whilst before I said I felt the zoom apply sections were encroaching on my family life and these sessions do run after school they are structured, and I was able to manage my family commitments around them. I do however feel that the community sessions could have a clearer focus as sometimes they fell into being a session for negativity.

The end of the course involves an assessment and when I first heard about this yes, I did panic. However, it is an open book assessment that it completed over 8 days, and you are graded as Pass or Fail. Our course facilitator was fantastic in preparing us for this assessment. We had an in-person conference where she showed us how to approach the 3 sections of the assessment. Also, the structure of the case studies during the study weeks allows you to practice how the course module principles apply to real life situations. As before, this assessment can be set within the context of any educational setting and you write as first person, as the leader making the decisions. As scary as an assessment sounds, this is actually the part of the course I enjoyed and felt like I was ready to lead my own team.

After you submit you have to wait 3 months for your result and I PASSED! That is all the feedback I have, there is an examiners reports as an overview of all assessments however I would’ve liked to have personalised feedback on my own.

Would I do it again, well yes I will and I am! I signed up for the NPQTLD straight after submitting my assessment and I’ve kept up the thirst for learning. What have I learnt from the NPQLT that I will do differently this time? I have a set myself one free period each week where I will complete the online study. I have a notebook to collate all the module principles and also summarise the additional reading I do which I can use currently in my everyday role and also in preparation for the assessment. Again, the buddy system hasn’t worked out for the apply sections but I’m not dwelling on that I have another colleague in school for me to check in with. I would recommend anyone to completing an NPQ. As i begin the NPQLTD I’m excited to get stuck in once again, Every Day is a School Day!!!

If you want to know more:

NPQ for Leading Teaching teacher training course | Ambition Institute