Educating Essex - NPQs In Numbers

National Professional Qualifications (NPQs) continue to transform leadership capacity across our region. With over 800 programme members, representation from 250 schools, and participation across every phase, Saffron Teaching School Hub's NPQs are shaping stronger classrooms, stronger teams and stronger school cultures. But as well as looking at the metrics, we wanted to explore the story behind the numbers: participation, performance, trust engagement, individual journeys and lived impact through our regional case studies.

Participation at Scale

Across all NPQ cohorts, 838 colleagues have enrolled in an NPQ with Saffron Teaching School Hub. Engagement spans the breadth of Specialist and Leadership suites, including the latest NPQ SENCO programme, which is now in its third cohort.

These figures show a rich spread of leadership development across phases and roles.

Commitment and Collaboration

Our NPQ engagement reflects a powerful culture of collaboration across the region. We are proud to work closely not only with multi-academy trusts but also with a large number of single academies and maintained schools, demonstrating a shared commitment to developing leaders in every type of setting.

Some of our most enduring engagement comes from the following MATs:

Saffron Academy Trust – 115 participants
Bridge Academy Trust – 92 participants
Epping Forest Schools Partnership Trust – 83 participants
The Passmores Cooperative Learning Community – 53 participants
The Chelmsford Learning Partnership – 26 participants

These trusts exemplify organisation-wide approaches to leadership development - embedding structured CPD pathways and cultivating leadership from early career to executive level.

This cross-phase investment strengthens:

Curriculum continuity
Transition experiences
Shared leadership language
Trust-wide approaches to behaviour, inclusion and literacy

It also builds a seamless leadership pipeline, enabling teachers to move confidently into phase-specific or multi-phase leadership roles as their careers evolve. This 'whole trust' mindset is especially clear in trusts appearing frequently in the dataset, where NPQ participation is not limited to a single school type or phase.

Alongside trusts, a large proportion of NPQ participants come from maintained schools or single academy trusts, demonstrating the widespread value of NPQs across all governance structures.

Schools with a sustained commitment to engagement include:

Hedingham School and Sixth Form – 35 NPQ programmes completed
The Anglo European School – 10 NPQ programmes completed
St Thomas More Catholic Primary School – 8 NPQ programmes completed
Clavering Primary School – 8 NPQ programmes completed

This balanced mix highlights a region where leadership development is not confined to any one type of organisation; instead, it thrives through shared commitment, reciprocal learning, and system-wide collaboration across all schools.

Pass Rates: A Regional Success Story

Our overall NPQ pass rate of 94.5% places Saffron Teaching School Hub strongly within the national landscape of NPQ delivery. The latest DfE dataset reports a national NPQ pass rate of 93.9% for 2023/24, meaning our regional outcomes sit slightly above the national benchmark. When compared with our Lead Provider, Teach First, whose national NPQ achievement rate stands at 90%, our outcomes again demonstrate the impact of high quality facilitation, robust programme structures and the sustained commitment of our programme members and schools. Taken together, these figures show that Saffron Teaching School Hub's NPQ programmes consistently support colleagues to successfully complete their qualifications and apply evidence-informed leadership with confidence across the region.

Programme Pass Rates – Highlights

NPQLL & NPQLPM: 100%
NPQLBC: 98.4%
NPQLTD: 97.1%
NPQSL: 95.7%
NPQLT: 94.3%
NPQH / NPQEYL: 90%+

We have also seen some excellent results across various cohorts of NPQ programmes, with our most recent Specialist programmes (Cohort 4a) achieving a 100% pass rate.

Insights from our NPQ Impact Case Study Series

Beyond the numbers, our NPQ Impact Case Studies provide powerful qualitative evidence of sustained change:

School Leader Lens – Emma Vincent (R A Butler Academy): Emma highlights how NPQs have repositioned school CPD as research‑led, strengthened long‑term improvement and improved staff confidence and retention.
Programme Member Lens – Stacey Lawrence (NPQLBC): Stacey’s work at Great Easton Primary shows the transformation possible in behaviour and culture when evidence‑based leadership is applied consistently.
Early Years Lens – Truly Bruce (NPQEYL): Truly demonstrates how the NPQEYL supports high quality provision and strong outcomes in Early Years settings.
Facilitator Lens – Duncan Roberts & Rachel Ayres: facilitators report elevated professional dialogue, clarity of implementation and a strengthened culture of improvement among programme members.

What the Numbers Reveal

Our NPQ numbers show:

A thriving culture of leadership development across the region
Deepening expertise through specialist NPQs
Trust-wide coherence via cross-phase participation
Clear leadership pipelines, shown through multi-NPQ journeys
Real, lived school-level impact, as evidenced in case studies

Looking Ahead

As participation continues to grow, our region’s leadership landscape is becoming stronger, more connected and more evidence-driven. The numbers tell a story of ambition, but the lived experiences show transformation. Through powerful partnerships, committed colleagues and a shared vision for excellence, NPQs continue to enrich the professional lives of educators and the learning experiences of pupils across Essex.

Join the schools across our region investing in the next generation of leaders

If you’d like deeper insight into your school’s NPQ journey, or you’re keen to explore how our NPQ programmes can unlock leadership potential, we’re here to help. Contact Kerrie McGivern or Erica Carver on 01799 513030.