Funding for national professional qualifications (NPQs)
Funding for courses and educational settings to help teachers and leaders take NPQs for their professional development.
Applies to England
National professional qualifications (NPQs) are flexible professional development courses for teachers and leaders to improve skills, progress careers and deliver improved outcomes for schools.
You may be able to get your NPQ course fees paid for by the Department for Education (DfE). This is called scholarship funding. You do not need to apply for it.
When you register for an NPQ, DfE will tell you if you are eligible for funding.
Scholarship funding for spring 2025
Scholarships are available to teachers and leaders in publicly funded schools and 16 to 19 educational organisations for the following NPQs:
leadingprimarymathematicsspecialeducationalneedsco-ordinator(SENCO)headship
TheFunding registerfor these 3 NPQs is also available to:
hospitalschoolsyoungoffenderinstitutionslocalauthorityvirtualschoolheadteachers,staffinadefineddeputyheadteacherroleandstaffindirectteachingrolesotherlocalauthoritystaffindirectteachingroles–example,localauthoritysupplyorperipateticteachers
For the following NPQs, funding is only available if your setting is on one of the eligible settings lists:
leadingteacherdevelopmentleadingteachingleadingbehaviourandcultureleadingliteracyseniorleadershipexecutiveleadershipearlyyearsleadership
For these NPQs, scholarship funding to cover the full NPQ course servicecost will be available to teachers and leaders from eligible schools and 16 to 19 settings.
For the NPQ in early years leadership, highly disadvantaged early years settings will also be eligible.
For the NPQ in leading teacher development, scholarship funding is currentlyalso closed,available asif recruitmentyou are taking on the role of lead mentor for springan 2025initial teacher training (ITT) provider accredited to deliver ITT from September 2024.
Early headship coaching offer
For the early headship coaching offer, funding to cover the course fees will be available if you are in your first 5 years of headship in England in a state-funded school or state-funded 16 to 19 organisation.
You should also be doing or have done the NPQ coursesfor hasheadship.
Settings ended.that are eligible for scholarship funding
These lists show which settings are eligible for funding.
: the top 50% of publicly funded schools that have the highest proportion of students attracting pupil premium.
: the top 50% for proportion of funded students attracting a disadvantage uplift – combination of disadvantage block 1 and block 2 funding.
: the top 50% of settings that have the highest proportion of children attracting:
earlyyearspupilpremiumdisadvantaged2yearoldentitlementfunding
Ofsted-registered childminders are included in early years settings.
To check eligibility, read the early years list with the high-disadvantage schools and high-disadvantage 16 to 19 settings lists.
These lists are fixed for the spring 2025 recruitment period.
Funding restrictions
You can requestonly anreceive emailscholarship notificationfunding tellingfor each NPQ once.
If you whenreceive thescholarship servicefunding willbut reopenthen withdraw from or fail your programme, you cannot receive scholarship funding for registrationthe same NPQ again.
Being eligible for futurean cohorts.NPQ scholarship does not guarantee either:
suitabilityforthecoursethatafundedcourseplaceisavailable
NPQ providers are responsible for determining suitability, through their application processes.
The amount of NPQ scholarship eligibilityfunding criteriaavailable nationally is limited. This means some teachers and leaders who are eligible for futurea scholarship may not be able to access a funded place.
NPQ cohortsproviders willmanage bethe confirmedapplication onprocess thisfor pagethe incourses duethey course.deliver and may need to prioritise applications to manage the number of funded places they have available. For example, NPQ providers will need to prioritise applications for NPQ for SENCO places to support those needing to take the qualification to meet statutory requirements.
If funded places are not available with your chosen NPQ provider, you can:
Updates
approach a different NPQ provider to thisenquire page
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Updated
moreinformationaboutNPQproviders.SuitabilityThecoursesuitabilityrequirementsmayvarydependingonprovider.toYoustateshouldthatcheckwithyourchosencourseproviderbeforeyouregister.Youmaymeetfundingcriteriabutnotthecoursesuitabilityrequirements.LegacyNPQsIfyoureceivedscholarshipfundingalegacy(beforeserviceNovemberis2021)currentlyandclosedwithdrewandfromtheprogramme,you’restilleligibleforfundingwillforbethecurrentNPQs.
Updates to this page
Update history
2025-04-28 09:30
Updated the page to state that the register for an NPQ service is currently closed and scholarship criteria will be updated in due course.
2025-02-10 11:25
We have published lists of schools, 16 to 19 settings and early years settings which are eligible for funding for spring 2025. We have updated the page to reflect this.
2024-12-16 09:30
Updated information about funding for 2025.
2024-09-30 11:33
Updated to clarify NPQ scholarship criteria.
2024-06-12 13:13
Updated information about funding for autumn 2024 and added a ‘Settings eligible for scholarship funding’ section.
2024-03-21 09:30
Updated with details of scholarship funding for autumn 2024.