Context 

Teacher retention has become a global challenge, as international evidence shows persistent teacher shortage (UNESCO, 2024). In the UK, high teacher attrition rates have reached to a serious level that government cannot replace the increasing number of teachers leaving the profession (UNESCO, 2024). Data from the House of Commons provides alarming evidence that the overall number of teachers in the UK does not keep pace with the increasing number of pupils since 2011 (House of Commons, 2021). Attrition rate is especially high among teachers in their first five years of teaching profession (Darling-Hammond, 2010; Department for Education, 2023). Meanwhile, there is also evidence that fewer middle school leaders aspire to become senior leaders (NAHT, 2021) and the supply of school leaders remains a challenge in the UK (Aleynikova et al., 2024). As school leaders play a key role in the success of a school, it is important to retain school leaders. 

In response, the UK government developed a teacher recruitment and retention strategy (Department for Education, 2019). The government’s “golden thread of teacher development” – running from initial teacher training bound together by Early Career Frameworks (ECF) to school leadership supported by the National Professional Qualifications (NPQs) – aims to provide support, training and development throughout a teacher’s career. As part of this strategy, University College London (UCL) is one leading national provider for the NPQ programmes. The NPQs aim to help teachers and leaders to develop skills, progress careers and improve school outcomes. 

Research Objectives

This study fills a gap in knowledge about how school leaders’ learning experiences on the NPQ programmes, in combination of factors relating to individual leaders and their work environment, influence their decision making in teaching and leadership. Drawing upon evidence from a four-year longitudinal study collecting annual survey data on NPQ participants, this paper aims to answer the following research question: How do the NPQ programmes impact school leaders’ retention decisions? It provides robust evidence on how school leaders’ experiences on the NPQ programmes influence their professional dispositions and qualities, and their intention to leave or stay in the teaching profession. 

Conceptual framing 

The framing of the conceptual framework is informed by the social ecological theory of human development and other research about employee turnover and persistence (e.g., March & Simon, 1958; Peterson & Seligman, 2004) and variation in teacher turnover (e.g., Nguyen & Springer, 2023). The socio-ecological interpretation of human development provides a useful lens for investigating how multilevel contexts of the environments in which teachers work impact on their learning, growth and development. This theoretical underpinning emerged from Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ground-breaking work on human development which is concerned with the interconnectedness and interactions between multilevel systems and the ways they shape the course of human development.

Within this socio-ecological interpretation of human development, we have encompassed ideas from Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), especially the work of Lent and his colleagues (e.g., Lent et al., 2002). Exemplifying many of the features of positive psychology (Seligman, 2002), SCCT is rooted in constructivist assumptions encompassed in Bandura’s general social cognitive theory (1986) about the agency of individuals in shaping their own behaviour. According to such theory, a considerable proportion of human behaviour can be explained by an array of beliefs about oneself, influenced by the contexts in which one finds oneself. 

Such conceptual framing places the focus of our investigation on the reciprocal interaction between the capability development of the individual teacher and the quality of multiple reciprocating systems in which their careers are located. Personal goals and outcomes are therefore seen as nurtured by the environments in which they work. 

Evidence for this study were responses to a survey conducted during 2022 to 2024 to participants who are school leaders working in state schools in England doing the UCL-led NPQ Specialist programmes. The survey covers factors relating to school leaders’ individual dispositions, the school leadership practices at their schools, their NPQ learning experiences, their wellbeing and their retention decision. A valid sample of 329 participants is achieved. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM) are used to analyse the data. The CFAs were used to develop the latent variables used in the SEM model. Nine latent variables indicating NPQ programme satisfaction, successful school leadership practices, professional growth opportunities, collaborative culture, leaders’ personal dispositions including self-efficacy, resilience, and personal professional goals, and their wellbeing (indicated by belonging, capability, job satisfaction, and affective wellbeing) were developed and included in the final SEM model. SEM analysis was performed to explore how the NPQ programme-related factor and various school conditions interact with one another to impact – directly and/or indirectly – on NPQ participants’ retention decisions to leave teaching, move to a different school, or stay at the same school. The SEM analysis, which is commonly used in the social and behavioural sciences, was guided by existing theories in education and grounded in empirical survey data to explore causal connections between different factors. The SEM analysis aims to better understand the “paths” of influence connecting the NPQ programmes to identify conditions in schools that influenced the nature and value of their work as school leaders and their decisions to stay in teaching, move schools, or leave the profession. Among the valid sample of 329 participants, most of the surveyed NPQ participants reported intending to stay at the same school for their second year (n= 271, 82%). A small proportion of them (n=46, 14%) reported intending to move to a different school for the following academic year, and only 4% of them (n=12) reported intending to leave the teaching profession.

The SEM Model fit was assessed as good, with the range of model fit indices: CFI (.912), TLI (.904), and RMSEA (.062). There are Six key takeaway messages: Takeaway 1: Successful school leadership improves participants’ professional growth opportunities. Those opportunities, in turn, have several different effects, one of which is to improve the extent to which the culture in the school is collaborative, which is an important influence on participants’ wellbeing. Perhaps an especially important part of successful leadership is building trust and support among staff. When trust and support are strong in a school, the school culture becomes more collaborative, and participants have higher self-efficacy. Takeaway 2: Professional growth opportunities — created and shaped by successful leadership practices — make important contributions to participants’ professional and personal dispositions. Takeaway 3: NPQ programme satisfaction contributes to participants’ resilience and self-efficacy as leaders. Their self-efficacy influences personal goals and both have a direct effect on their wellbeing, as does resilience. Takeaway 4: When participants view their leaders as trustworthy and supportive, both their self-efficacy and desire to collaborate with colleagues are increased. Takeaway 5: The influence of collaborative culture, professional growth opportunities and leadership trust and support combines to improve participants’ wellbeing. Takeaway 6: Participants reporting a stronger sense of wellbeing are more likely to plan to stay in the teaching profession or stay at their schools. Wellbeing in this study encompassed sense of belonging in school, job satisfaction in teaching, capabilities as a leader, and affective engagement and enthusiasm at work. The evidence suggests that the NPQ programmes themselves do not retain school leaders. To help improve the retention of leaders at school, the NPQ learning needs to be supported by successful school leadership. It is the combination of these two that will make a difference to school leaders’ retention.

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