NPQH Cycle 4 Practice Activities: Leading
Organisational Effectiveness
Cycle 4 Practice Activities
Internalise expertise
Select three of the following nine activities to submit to your leadership performance coach.
Choose activities based on your areas of interest and the results of the review undertaken at the start of the course.
Organisational management
Activity 1: Reviewing health and safety policies
Take a look at the DfE’s Health and Safety Advice for Schools, paying attention to guidance on the leadership of health and safety and school health and safety policies. Also look at the HSE’s The Role of School Leaders.
Review your health and safety policy in light of this guidance.
Does the current policy ensure you are meeting the statutory requirements?
Is the policy clearly written and accessible for the relevant stakeholders?
Is it appropriate and proportionate?
How could the policy be improved in line with the guidance?
How will you meet your obligations as a headteacher?
Submission
Submit a summary of your learning from this task to your leadership performance coach (maximum 200 words).
Resources
DfE (2022) Health and safety: advice for schools HSE (2022) The role of school leaders
Activity 2: Alternative provision
The evidence base underpinning the framework highlighted the negative impact of exclusion on pupils’ life chances. Timpson Review (2019) provides recommendations for leaders to improve the exclusion process.
Read Timpson’s (2019) report and the DfE (2024) guidance on exclusions.
Meet with a senior colleague to review the school’s current approach to managing suspensions, exclusions and alternative provision.
Identify at least two pupils who have been suspended, excluded or experienced alternative provision.
What impact did this have on their progress, behaviour and well-being?
Having read the review and DfE guidance, what other strategies could have been employed for the benefit of the pupils and the school?
Draft a plan to investigate potential strategies for addressing any workload issues identified.
Additional information for international participants
Whilst specific alternative provision may not be available in your locality, what happens to students that are at risk of exclusion in your school? Here are some questions you might consider:-
How do you manage pupils who are at risk of exclusion?
What are the policies and procedures that are in place for internal seclusion and exclusion?
How is the decision made about the type and duration of an exclusion?
How do leaders ensure that a pupils’ needs are safeguarded when they are on a period of exclusion?
How do leaders ensure that the expectations for pupils who have been excluded are still high?
Use this activity to focus on how exclusions are used in your school and what is the impact of exclusion on pupils when this occurs.
Submission
Submit a summary of your learning from this task to your leadership performance coach (maximum 200 words).
Resources
DfE (2024) Suspension and permanent exclusion from maintained schools, academies and pupil referral units in England, including pupil movement
Timpson, E. (2019) Timpson review of school exclusion
Activity 3: Your school’s funding
It is important that headteachers understand the funding mechanisms for their schools. Take a look at Annex A of the DfE’s (2023) National Funding Formula for Schools and High Needs, paying attention to how funding is constituted and calculated.
Use the DfE’s (2024) National Funding Formula tool to see how funding is calculated for your school. (Some independent or international schools may not be able to use this tool.)
Refer to the funding guidance for academies (DfE, 2021a) or schools (DfE, 2023) to identify any other grants and funding that make up your school’s income, for example pupil premium and recovery premium. (You may wish to meet with your school business manager or a senior leader responsible for finance.)
NB: Schools which are not ESFA funded may need to conduct independent research to identify the funding mechanisms for their schools, for example by meeting with their school’s financial director.
Summarise how funding works for your school.
How will you apply this understanding in your role?
Submission
Submit a summary of your response to your leadership performance coach (maximum 200 words).
Resources
DfE (2025) National funding formula
DfE (2021a) Academies: compliance, funding and payments
DfE (2026) National funding formula for schools and high needs: 2026 to 2027
DfE (2026) School and academy funding guidance and regulation
Activity 4: Strategic management of resources
In his practice piece about managing resources, Tim Long explained how he worked with his team to ensure the strategic management of resources, demonstrating how he adjusted figures in the DfE’s ICFP workbook to identify the most effective deployment of resources to deliver a broad and inclusive curriculum.
Watch Tim Long’s practice piece interview, paying attention to how he talks through the adjustments needed to achieve the desired results.
Download the appropriate workbook for your context, or access your school’s own ICFP workbook.
You may find it useful to meet with your school business manager or another senior leader to help you complete or edit the workbook.
Identify a potential improvement to your curriculum offer or opportunity for increased efficiency in its delivery, for example, freeing up time for staff development, providing enrichment activities or opportunities for small-group tutoring.
Adjust the figures until you achieve the balance you need and are happy with the results.
Reflect on the results.
What compromises or adjustments were required?
How have school improvement priorities influenced these decisions?
How will the insights provided by this approach to financial and curriculum planning inform your school development planning?
Submission
Submit a summary of your learning from this activity to your leadership performance coach (maximum 200 words).
Resources
Practice piece: Tim Long, principal, Bridgewater High School
Primary schools can use the primary school workbook (MS Excel spreadsheet) and technical guide
Secondary schools can use the secondary school workbook (MS Excel spreadsheet) and technical guide.
Special schools and providers of AP can use the special schools and providers of AP workbook (MS Excel spreadsheet) and technical guide
DfE (2019) A 7-step guide to ICFP
DfE (2019) Basic principles of ICFP
DfE (2025) Integrated curriculum and financial planning (ICFP)
Governance and accountability
Activity 5: The headteacher’s relationship with the chair
In their practice piece on the subject of high-quality, effective and ethical governance, David Cole and Su Turner discuss how they work together as headteacher and chair to ensure effective governance at their school.
Watch the practice piece video and read Section 1 of the Maintained Schools Governance Guide (2024), which explains the features of effective governance.
Meet with the chair of governors or leader of the board at your school. Discuss how the headteacher and the chair work together to ensure effective governance at your school.
How do the headteacher and chair reach agreement on the division of responsibilities?
What action have they taken to develop an effective working relationship built on trust?
What does the chair need from the headteacher to ensure the board are able to ensure school governance exhibits the features outlined in the guidance?
How can the headteacher ensure the headteacher’s report is clear, concise and accessible, and provides the chair with the information they need to inform effective governance?
Submission
Submit a summary of your response to your leadership performance coach (maximum 200 words).
Resources
Practice piece: David Cole, headteacher, Brine Leas School, and Su Turner, chair of governors, Brine Leas School
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/governance-in-maintained-schools
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/-governance-in-academy-trusts
Activity 6: Complying with statutory guidance
The DfE’s Statutory Guidance for Schools Collection sets out what schools must do to comply with the law and includes guidance on:
administration and finance
assessment
behaviour and attendance
governance
safeguarding children and young people
special educational / health needs
Identify four key examples of statutory guidance of relevance to your school and save a link to the relevant documents, or make a note of them.
Why did you choose each of those examples?
How will you ensure you are notified of any changes to the guidance?
What action can you take to ensure you and your staff understand the implications of the guidance for your school and their practice (for example, professional development, standing agenda items, school policies, drafting guidance and scaffolds, bringing in expertise)?
Additional information for international participants
As an international school, you are not required by law to address UK statutory guidance. A thorough knowledge of this guidance could be a useful tool. An alternative approach to this task would be to check on what laws are statutory in your country and how you comply with them and what impact they might have on the delivery of a British curriculum. You may wish to consider:
Curriculum: Is there a local requirement to deliver specific languages or realistic pressures that mean delivery of these languages is a requirement?
Safeguarding children and young people: What are your safeguarding policies? How well understood are they by all staff?
Staff employment and teachers’ pay: Do you have the correct legal advice or a knowledgeable HR department to support you?
Do you have a different pay scale for local and expatriate staff? How transparent is this and how do you justify the difference, particularly when they may be carrying out the same duties?
Governance: In international schools, there is a wide variety of governance models. As a school leader, how do you ensure that the accountable body is aware of its role and functions and which ,if any, are statutory?
Submission
Submit a summary of your response to your leadership performance coach (maximum 200 words).
Resources
DfE Schools: Statutory Guidance
International
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/ 1150153/Standards_for_British_schools_overseas_-_from_14_August_2023.pdf
Working in partnership
Activity 7: Reviewing partnerships and networks
Rincón-Gallardo and Fullan (2016) identified 8 essential features of effective school networks:
focussing on ambitious student learning outcomes linked to effective pedagogy
developing strong relationships of trust and internal accountability
continuously improving practice and systems through cycles of collaborative inquiry
using deliberate leadership and skilled facilitation within flat power structures
frequently interacting and learning inwards
connecting outwards to learn from others
forming new partnerships among students, teachers, families and communities
securing adequate resources to sustain the work
Identify one of your school’s most important partnerships. Meet with the relationship leads or key members of that network or partnership and use Rincón-Gallardo and Fullan’s list of the essential features to help structure a review the partnership’s or network’s effectiveness.
What evidence is there that the partnership or network exhibits each of these features?
What action is required to improve the effectiveness of the partnership or network?
Submission
Submit a summary of your learning from this activity to your leadership performance coach (maximum 200 words).
Resource
EEF (2021) Working with parents to support children’s learning
Activity 8: Working with parents
In her practice piece about working with parents and carers, Helen Nelson explained how she supported the pastoral team to build relationships with parents through effective communication and home visits.
Read the EEF (2022) recommendations for working effectively with parents.
Meet with members of your pastoral team, head of year or SENCo to critically review how your school works with parents and to discuss the recommendations.
Look at recommendations 2, 3 and 4, and with your colleagues, identify how you could improve:
support for learning at home
communications
sustained, targeted support where needed
Identify one potential action for improvement for each of these.
Submission
Submit a summary of your learning from this activity to your leadership performance coach (maximum 200 words).
Resources
Practice piece: Helen Nelson, headteacher at Joseph Cash Primary School
EEF (2021) Working with parents to support children’s learning
Activity 9: Setting up partnerships
The evidence underpinning the framework highlights the need to share practice between schools by setting up and managing partnerships.
The DfE (2019) Guide to Setting up Partnerships provides practical guidance on managing each stage of a partnership, including:
identifying areas for collaboration
finding partners
setting objectives
monitoring and evaluation
Using the guidance, identify an area for collaboration, find potential partners and set objectives for a partnership with a focus on pedagogy to share an aspect of teaching practice. Your choice of area for collaboration should be informed by your school improvement priorities.
Draft a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in light of the DfE guidance.
Additional information for international participants
A strategy for developing mutually beneficial partnerships in the international context may need to be addressed. Partnerships are not limited to geographically close ones. You may wish to consider your strategy for partnerships which have a wider reach, for example partnerships with schools in other countries.
You may already have partnerships in some areas, such as sports, that are creating positive outcomes for children but the rationale for these may not be fully understood by all stakeholders.
As part of a strategy for partnerships you may need a memorandum of understanding between partners to make expectations clear from both sides. This activity will develop your knowledge in how to make these connections.
Submission
Submit a summary of your learning from this activity to your leadership performance coach (maximum 200 words).
Resource
DfE (2022) Guide to setting up partnerships
International
https://www.internationalschoolspartnership.com/
https://www.britishcouncil.org/school-resources/partner
https://www.globallearningni.com/connecting-classrooms/international-school-partnerships