Champion change with evidence based practice.

Certified Practising Principal (CPP) is the world's only independent, professional certification for practising principals seeking to develop their leadership skills. It is open to principals from all school education sectors around the world.

The CPP award is a formal endorsement that the candidate has demonstrated the Australian Principal Standard (AITSL, 2011) in action in thier school.

The certification process is rigorous and well researched. It is designed to support professional learning which improves professional practice and integrates with your existing work to help you create positive change.

Principals are awarded certification in recognition of excellence in educational leadership - valuable accreditation to springboard for a newer principal or to recognise a distinguished career.

Becoming a certified principal

Stand out as a leader

Forge your own path.

Being a principal is a demanding role so the certification process is designed to integrate into your existing workload and links to tangible improvements for your school.

The CPP award highlights both experienced and emerging leaders in the education field and is open to established and early career principals seeking to become exceptional.

Raise the benchmark - inspire others to follow

The CPP award is the only independent system that enable you to demonstrate you are implementing the professional practices described in Principal Standards around the world such as AITSL and NBPEA.

As the CPP award operates across all jurisdictions and sectors, principals stand to gain from enriching interactions with a diverse range of peers from beyond their usual sphere of professional activity.

You will join a commuity of professionals who value widespread use of research-based practices and continuous development.

Professional learning designed to meet principals’ needs

You are welcome wherever you are in the world. We accept qualified principals from  jurisdictions including Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore, among others.

The CPP award has been designed to be inclusive, regardless of the location, size, level, sector or context of the candidate's school.

Certification is awarded where supporting evidence and comprehensive reflective analyses demonstrate improved outcomes have been achieved.

Candidates are guided through a thorough process of planning, implementing and monitoring strategies for improvement in their school. The process challenges and stretches their professional practice.

An evidence-based professional certification

Certification decisions are based on evidence that candidates are implementing practices described in the Principal Standard.

The CPP award is based on rigorous assessment of evidence of candidates' leadership practice.

The design of the CPP assessment is research-based. It uses a task-based portfolio to capture authentic samples of the complex work of principals.

The assessment tasks, called Portfolio Initiatives, are based on the kind of work that principals would expect to do as part of their normal duties.

Evidence validation is achieved using an independently administered online tool. The implementation and impact of CPP is monitored in an ongoing program evaluation.