Service changes June 2022
After being closed for registrations since March, the service reopened for this academic year and reflected new policy changes.
New courses and providers
Two new NPQs are now available, the NPQ for Leading Literacy (NPQLL) and the NPQ for Early Years Leadership (NPQEYL).
There are a reduced list of providers who will deliver the new NPQLL and NPQEYL these are:
- Ambition Institute
- Education Development Trust
- School-Led Network
- Teacher Development Trust
- Teach First
- UCL Institute of Education
The Institute of Teaching is a new provider and is providing the NPQEL.
Policy changes to the Additional Support Offer
To increase uptake of the ASO, policy made the following decisions:
- Rename to the Early Headship Coaching Offer (EHCO)
- Extend the amount of years new headteachers could be in their role to be funded, from three to five.
- Although DfE funding is not available, users who are not in a state-funded school, academy or 16-19 educational setting can now register for an EHCO.
Design changes
- New registration journey for early years and childcare professionals
- Updates to the existing funding messages and adding non funded messages
- Replaced college for ‘16-19 educational setting’ as colleges are only one of the types of organisations that offer post-16 education.
- Changed ‘school or college’ to ‘workplace’ to reflect that many users work in organisations that are not schools or colleges.
Targeted support and delivery funding
A policy decision was made to offer additional funding (targeted support funding) to educational establishments which had a headcount of less than 600 and whose staff would receive DfE scholarship funding. Providers would also receive additional payments if they were training that staff member (targeted delivery funding). Both the establishment and provider would receive funding for every staff member that registered and were accepted for an NPQ course (excluding EHCO).
Identifying which establishments were eligible for the targeted support was difficult as the Get Information About Schools (GIAS) database has gaps in information about schools. We resolved this issue by analysing types of establishments. By looking at common trends and patterns against establishments we already knew had a headcount of less than 600, we were able to determine the headcount for the unknowns. This allowed us to narrow the options down until the digital team and policy team agreed which establishments would be eligible for the targeted support.
The unique reference number (URN) of each establishment with a headcount less than 600 was then coded into the service, so eligible registrations would be logged automatically.
Emails were sent out to the schools to tell them that they were eligible for additional targeted support. There was no need to make individual participants aware when registering, however providers requested a marker or flag so that they knew who the participants were. Therefore a flag is now present on the API when providers receive a registration (endpoint) and provides them with the information on participants.