NACE CEO Rob Lightfoot reflects on key NACE initiatives over the past academic year, and looks ahead to our plans for 2025-26.

I’d like to start with a thank you: to all the member schools, NACE Associates and partner organisations who have contributed to our work this year. Our strength is in our network, and this has been particularly clear over the past year, with our membership and wider community working together to share and develop approaches to ensure every young person has access to cognitively challenging learning opportunities – helping to close the achievement gaps for all.

Subject-specific resources and CPD

One of the areas in which this collaborative approach has been most apparent and impactful is in our focus on collating subject-specific resources to support schools in implementing approaches to support cognitive challenge across each subject area.

Throughout the year, we’ve been adding to our subject-specific resource collections, with input from our member schools and a range of leading subject associations who have generously shared their expertise. Alongside this, we’ve worked with partners on a series of subject-specific webinars; if you missed any of the live sessions, the recordings are available for all members to watch back.

This work goes alongside our subject-specific online workshops, which we continue to run at both primary and secondary level.

More to come in 2025-26 – please contact us to share what’s working well in your own subject/department, or to suggest additional areas for us to focus on.

Research update

The third phase of our “making space for able learners” research initiative has focused on exploring how schools can best support more able learners who encounter disadvantage in any of its many forms. Thanks to all the schools which have contributed by sharing examples of what’s working in their own context, and to York St John University which is partnering with us on this project.

Key findings from this initiative were shared at our conference in June, alongside case studies from many of the contributing schools. Watch this space for details of the forthcoming publication, plus supporting materials and CPD opportunities.

NACE Challenge Development Programme

On the NACE Challenge Development Programme side, we’ve been pleased to welcome new schools to the programme whilst celebrating those attaining Challenge Award accreditation for the first, second, third, fourth or even fifth time. We were delighted to hold our first Challenge Award School Experience event outside of the UK earlier this term, at Horizon International School in Dubai, as well as celebrating the addition of Alfreton Nursery School to our growing network of NACE Challenge Ambassador Schools. 

You can explore all currently accredited schools on our Challenge Award schools map. 

If your school is interested in working with the NACE Challenge Framework, you can schedule a free 1-2-1 call to find out more. We also offer discounts for groups of schools working collectively on the programme.

What next?

We’re busy planning our CPD programme for next academic year, with several courses already open for booking. These include two exciting new collaborations:

• The Working Classroom – a six-part course for those working at Key Stages 3 to 5, led by Matt Bromley and Andy Griffith, authors of The Working Classroom: How to make school work for working class students. 
• Thinking Moves A-Z: Metacognition Made Simple – a four-part course for teachers across all phases, led by Roger Sutcliffe, creator of the Thinking Moves A-Z and a world leader in the field of Philosophy for Children.

We’re also running our popular “Leading on more able” one-day course again on 9th October. Plus, bookings are open for our autumn term member meetup, which will be held at the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE) in London on 3rd October.

Check your school post-box ahead of the new term for your 2025-26 member mailing, including more updates on our plans for the year and ideas to get full value from your membership.

As always, please do get in touch with any feedback, questions or suggestions. From all of us here at NACE: have a great summer break!