Aspiring Principal Programme
Take the next step in your leadership career and apply for the Aspiring Principal Programme
Each year the Aspiring Principal Programme accepts 200 applicants who want to make the move to become a principal. The programme is open to experienced educators with high levels of leadership aspiration and potential. You do not need to be an assistant or deputy principal to apply.
Before making an application, consider the following:
- Do I intend to apply for principal roles within the next 2 to 3 years?
- Am I ready to commit to a programme with diverse programme components while continuing to meet current role expectations?
- Can I demonstrate formal or informal leadership experience in my current or past roles?
If you can answer yes to all three questions, we welcome your application.
Key programme information
The programme aims to prepare you to lead a school or kura with clarity and with a strategic focus on achieving the best possible impact on student outcomes. It is designed to combine structured learning, collaboration, and personalised support to connect theory with practice:
- Self-directed opportunities to explore the role and responsibilities of principalship at your own pace, and in response to emerging learning needs. Examples could include online modules, podcasts, and curated resources.
- Facilitated, collaborative opportunities to work alongside other aspiring principals to build your leadership capability, share experiences, and develop lasting professional networks.
- One-to-one mentoring and coaching from experienced principals to provide support as you learn, face challenges, reflect on practice, and grow into your leadership style. This includes supporting you with a leadership project in your school.
Commitment to the programme, including meeting programme expectations, will be carefully managed alongside your teaching workload, other work commitments and time constraints.
To further support your success, the Ministry will make a contribution of three teacher release days to your school or kura if you are accepted into the programme.
To be eligible to apply, you must:
- Be currently employed as a permanent teacher (at least 0.6 full-time teacher equivalent (FTTE)) in a New Zealand state or state-integrated school or kura.
- Hold a Tiwhikete Whakaakoranga Tūturu | Full Practising Certificate (Category One).
- Have a minimum of four years FTTE teaching experience, including at least two years in New Zealand state or state-integrated school settings.
- Have informed your principal | tumuaki you want to apply and have their support.
Home school support and referee choice
Before you start your application:
Talk with your current principal: they must support your application. They will need to support you to participate and complete the programme requirements. You need to secure their support to make an application and to complete an in-school project as part of the programme.
Choose a referee: Choosing your current principal to also act as your referee is an obvious choice, but not the only one. You can also choose a previous principal or other professional; someone who knows you well enough to assess your leadership ability and potential across several capability areas.
Referees are required to complete an endorsement form, including an assessment of your leadership capability.
Please ensure your referee understands they will need to submit the endorsement form to complete the application process.
The format of the application includes demographic data, referee details, an eligibility check and two long-form responses about your career, aspirations and leadership impact to date. You will also be asked to make a declaration and confirm the information provided is correct.
The information you provide in the two long-form responses (of up to 350 words each) will form the basis of your application assessment. The questions are:
Describe a time when your teaching and leadership experience significantly influenced your approach to improving teaching and learning. In your response, please provide a specific example of how you contributed to raising student achievement and improving attendance. What leadership capabilities, professional knowledge and competencies did you draw on?
Tell us about your aspirations and motivation for becoming a principal. Describe a time when you held a formal or informal leadership role that helped prepare you to lead a school. In your response, highlight the leadership capabilities you demonstrated, your key strengths and areas of development, how did you contribute to improving student achievement and attendance, and how do you plan to lead these improvements in a principal role?
We also recommend drafting your responses to the long form questions and copying them into the online application.
You do not need to complete your application in one sitting as long as you return to your application by clicking on the application link below using the same internet browser (e.g., chrome, bing, safari etc).
You will need to complete an online endorsement form. You will be asked to provide some details about you and your professional relationship with the applicant. You will also be asked to provide the applicant’s Ministry of Education number so we can match your endorsement to their application.
You will be asked to assess the applicant’s demonstrated leadership capabilities. Using a 5-point scale, you will need to indicate the level at which you believe the applicant currently operates for each area:
- Leadership attributes – Leading learning, thought leadership and innovation, leadership in practice, people leadership and self-leadership.
- Strategic and organisational leadership – strategic thinking and planning, evaluation and impact, managing resources, professional growth and wellbeing.
- Relational leadership – building high trust relationships, collective leadership and professional community, culturally sustaining practice.
You will have the opportunity to provide additional feedback on each of the three capability areas and will be asked to provide an overall recommendation. You will then be required to complete a declaration and privacy statement about how the information provided will be used.
To ensure an aspiring principal applicant can be assessed for the programme, referees must submit a completed endorsement form before the close date.
Contact us
Please contact us for additional information about applying for the aspiring principal programme or acting as a referee. We're here to help and will respond within 24 hours.