Frequently asked questions about licensing

1. What are the implications of the move to licensing for participants on current National College programmes?

Licences have been awarded to deliver the leadership curriculum. The redesigned National Professional Qualification for Headship (NPQH) was launched in autumn 2012 and new qualifications for middle leaders and senior leaders in January 2013.

2. What is the leadership curriculum?

The leadership curriculum offers a modular approach to leadership development structured around five levels. Each level reflects a different stage in a leader’s professional development and career.

Level one: leading a team – focusing mainly on middle leaders
Level two: leading beyond a team – focusing mainly on senior leaders
Level three: aspiring to lead an organisation
Level four: leading an organisation
Level five: leading beyond an organisation

Each of the first three levels offers a professional qualification that will provide national recognition of your leadership development and achievement. These new qualifications have a flexible, modular structure that combine core elements (essential modules) with the freedom to specialise or develop your own professional areas of interest (elective modules). All qualifications are assessed and awarded by the National College.

In addition to offering a more flexible qualification route, the curriculum also gives you the option to study some (elective) modules on their own.

3. What will happen to the College’s existing range of programmes?

Over time, the leadership curriculum will replace the majority of our more traditional, structured programmes. Some programmes are already closed to further applications, including Leadership Pathways and Tomorrow’s Heads.

4. I’d like to offer services to a licensee – how do I do that?

All of our licensees are either led by, or operate in partnership with, schools and academies. If you’re interesting in working with them, you should contact the licensee directly. They can tell you about opportunities to support delivery of leadership development provision, including school placements.

5. We want to continue delivering the Middle Leadership Development Programme (MLDP). Can our cluster do this?

We have launched two new qualifications for middle and senior leaders. The National Professional Qualification for Middle Leadership (NPQML) and National Professional Qualification for Senior Leadership (NPQSL) began in January 2013. NPQML replaces our current provision for middle leaders and MLDP will cease delivery in December 2013. It will no longer be possible to deliver the MLDP programme, use any of the MLDP materials or refer to the MLDP name when describing development activity for middle leaders.

We are keen to encourage licensees to build on the success of MLDP by drawing on the skills of the many excellent facilitators already in the system – and we know that some licensees have already had productive discussions with facilitators in their regions. If you are interested in supporting delivery of our new qualification for middle leaders, you should contact your local licensee to find out about opportunities to get involved.

6. How does my organisation apply to become a licensee?

From September 2013 schools and academies, commercial organisations, not-for-profit organisations and higher education institutions will have the opportunity to apply for a license to delivery three school business management (SBM) qualifications. To find out more please visit the SBM licensing webpage.

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