Re‐thinking teachers' professional development: An analysis of National Professional Qualifications for school leaders in England

Abstract This article considers how teachers' professional development could be redeveloped to help address the current crisis in teacher recruitment and retention by offering greater intellectual rigour and more opportunities for intellectual growth. Our analysis is focused on the UK government's current policy for leadership development in schools in England. We conducted a content analysis of a sample of three of the framework documents published by the Department for Education to guide providers in delivering the suite of National Professional Qualifications (NPQs). To establish the content of the NPQ frameworks and assess the values and behaviours promoted by the qualifications, we analyse and discuss the data using a conceptual framework which considers the behavioural, attitudinal and conceptual dimensions of professional learning. We argue that NPQs, in their current form, may not be contributing sufficiently to making teaching an attractive profession in England due to limited opportunities for intellectual and attitudinal development. However, we identify opportunities to build on the existing suite of NPQs productively. We recommend that the behavioural vision of professional development presented by the qualifications is challenged to make the teaching profession more attractive to both new and existing teachers by fostering more intellectual and attitudinal components in their professional growth.