New! Changes to NPQ Communities

From our research, we learnt that where communities are working well, sessions have higher support, consistency, accountability and are more tightly linked to the content on the programme.

The changes described below will affect the autumn 2023 cohort and subsequent cohorts across all leadership and specialist NPQs.  

We want communities to fulfil the following purposes for participants:  

• Support their learning on the programme by consolidating key ideas.  
• Help them contextualise their learning by thinking about how key ideas can be useful in their contexts.  
• Network with other participants by supporting one another to problem solve.  

What changes have we made to communities to better fulfil these purposes? 

• Fewer communities: we have decreased the number of communities sessions to support with scheduling and ensure there are fewer, better-quality sessions for participants.   
• Linked to learning: we have linked each community to a course participants will have already completed on the NPQ.  
• Supportive resources: to link the community to a course, we have created workbooks for participants to use during community sessions.  
• No pre work: participants can access the workbook in advance of each community session as they can with clinic workbooks.  
• Same groups each time: participants will work in groups of 3-4 and this will remain consistent across all sessions.  
• Designated chairperson: in the workbook we guide participants to nominate a chair for each community session from within their group.  
• Extended time: community sessions have been extended from 1 hour to 1 hour 15 mins.