NACE CEO Rob Lightfoot shares an update on opportunities for NACE members for the coming year – including our research focus for the year, the 2025 NACE Conference, the launch of our subject-specific resources, network groups, primary and secondary subject workshops and our continued cluster offers for both membership and the Challenge Development Programme.

As we enter the start of the new academic year, I wanted to take this opportunity to give you a brief overview of what we have planned to support you this year…

Research focus for 2024/25

As I am sure you will be aware already, this year we will be concentrating our efforts on researching how we can best support more able learners who encounter disadvantage in any of its many forms. Our research will demonstrate the successes of schools in enhancing the motivation, engagement, achievement, experience and education choices for more able learners who experience disadvantaged circumstances. Our aim is for this work to become a vehicle for professional development and school improvement.

We are holding an in-person research event on Friday 18th October at the NACE offices for anyone interested in being part of this project. Register here or contact research lead Dr Ann McCarthy on annmccarthy@nace.co.uk if you have any questions.

NACE Conference 2025 

The research outlined above will be the focus for our conference this year, taking place on Friday 27th June 2025 at Pangbourne College. Our early bird 2-for-1 will end soon – take advantage of this offer by signing up now.

Subject-specific resources

Following member feedback, we are delighted to be launching our new subject-specific resource collections – to support subject leaders and individual teachers in embedding cognitively challenging learning across the curriculum. We will continue to add to these collections throughout the year. If there is a particularly resource or strategy that you would like to share with our wider member network, then please get in touch with us via info@nace.co.uk.

Network Groups

We will continue to run our popular series of Network Groups for the new academic year. These groups offer the opportunity to connect and collaborate with peers and seek support for the issues you currently face. There are dedicated groups for More Able Leads (meeting half-termly), EYFS and KS5 (termly), as well as a free termly group exclusively for schools accredited with the NACE Challenge Award. All are facilitated by NACE’s senior education team.

Register now for the full year and you’ll get one session free. 

Subject workshops

Having received outstanding feedback since we started running our subject workshops in January 2023, we will continue to run these popular online sessions. 

You can sign up for our next set of primary workshops taking place on the morning of Thursday 21st November 2024, covering history, mathematics and reading. Our secondary workshops will take place on Thursday 30th January 2025 and will cover computing, English and mathematics. Multi-delegate discounts are available.

NACE offers for groups/clusters of schools

We will continue to offer discounts to clusters of schools for both membership and participation in NACE’s Challenge Development Programme. Working together will promote a consistency in approach, while allowing the flexibility for each school to work at their own pace and in line with their own context. Groups of schools working on the programme can also benefit from shared consultancy and/or CPD to support this process.

NACE Challenge Ambassador schools

We are delighted to welcome Holme Grange School and Nettlesworth Primary School as our more recent NACE Challenge Ambassador Schools – both attaining this status during the 2023/24 academic year – joining existing Ambassadors Toot Hill School, Southend High School for Boys and Ysgol Glan Gele. 

If you have already been accredited with the Challenge Award on two or more occasions, you will have the opportunity to apply to become a NACE Challenge Ambassador School during your next accreditation. To do this, you must meet the Ambassador School requirements, and we look forward to more schools joining this prestigious group in future years when their next accreditation is due. 

I wish you all the very best for the new academic year. As always, please do get in touch if we can support you in any way.