Contact Us | Print Page | Sign In | Register
Professional development
Blog Home All Blogs
Included in NACE’s core principles is the belief that teachers are central to providing challenging and enriching education, and their professional development is paramount. This blog series explores effective approaches to teacher CPD at all career stages, with a focus on developing and sustaining high-quality provision for more able learners and cognitively challenging learning for all.

 

Search all posts for:   

 

Top tags: CPD  research  collaboration  professional development  cognitive challenge  enquiry  leadership  school improvement  curriculum  networking  pedagogy  language  assessment  lockdown  neuroscience  oracy  partnerships  early career teachers  maths  mentoring  metacognition  myths and misconceptions  pyschology  technology  Wales  wellbeing  access  adolescence  aspirations  Challenge Award 

CEO’s update: thank you – and what’s next?
Posted By Rob Lightfoot, 08 July 2025

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! 

 

Tags:  Challenge Award  Challenge Framework  cognitive challenge  collaboration  CPD  leadership  networking  professional development  research 

Permalink | Comments (0)
 

NACE membership: opportunities and updates for 2022-23
Posted By Rob Lightfoot, 20 September 2022
Updated: 08 September 2022

NACE CEO Rob Lightfoot shares an update on opportunities for NACE members this year – including new on-demand CPD, R&D Hubs, website updates, and reduced Challenge Development Programme costs.

Welcome to the new academic year! I am sure we are all looking forward to leaving school closures behind us, following the Covid pandemic, and being able to focus on the needs of our young people. Here’s an overview of what we have planned to support you and your school this year…

New on-demand CPD modules

Our set of new on-demand modules build on NACE’s research into cognitively challenging learning environments, exploring key aspects of cognitively challenging teaching and learning. Grounded in research, each module is brought to life with examples of cognitive challenge in practice – at the whole-school/leadership level, and within the individual classroom.

In a similar vein, we will soon be launching a set of on-demand modules for teaching assistants to understand the cognitive science behing challenge in the classroom. Again, this set of modules can be used to provide training across the academic year for all of the teaching assistants in your school.

R&D Hubs programme launch

Our Research and Development Hubs programme, free for our member schools, offers opportunities for NACE members to exchange effective practice, develop in-school research skills and collaborate on enquiry-based projects. This year, the Hubs are exploring three key themes: (1) oracy for high achievement; (2) rethinking assessment; (3) cognitive challenge within the new Curriculum for Wales. To learn more, please sign up for the online Hubs programme launch, which takes place on Tuesday 27 September at 3:30pm. 

Website updates

We are making changes to our website, in response to member feedback, to make it easier for you to sign up for events (such as this term’s member meetup) and find the resources you are seeking. These amendments will continue throughout the academic year, but we hope you will see an immediate improvement this term – starting with our new-look members’ area. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with additional feedback and suggestions.

Keeping costs low to support member schools

We are all facing increased costs but, to support our members, we are freezing our membership subscriptions at the same rates as for the 21/22 academic year. We are also extending the discounts available for MATs, alliances and clusters; see here for all fees and group discounts.

In addition, to mark NACE’s 40th anniversary, we are reducing the prices of NACE Challenge Development Programme packages for the whole of the 22/23 academic year. The NACE Challenge Development Programme is designed to support school leaders who are uncompromising in their ambition to ensure more able learners achieve their potential, in the context of challenge for all. 

Alongside this, we are reducing costs for schools working through the Challenge Development Programme who wish to apply for Challenge Award school accreditation – providing external validation of high-quality provision for more able learners. Again, these reductions will be in place for the whole of the 22/23 academic year.

NACE Challenge Ambassador programme launch

This month we are launching our NACE Challenge Ambassador Schools programme, which will be open to all schools that have achieved the NACE Challenge Award on two or more occasions. This initiative aims to create a strong network of schools, providing outstanding collaboration opportunities for similar-minded school leaders, and supporting continued improvements in provision for more able learners. The programme will also provide a collective voice to respond to government white papers and other high-priority issues at the national level.

Celebrating NACE’s 40th anniversary

As mentioned above, 2023 will be NACE’s 40th year working with schools, education leaders, practitioners and policy makers to improve provision for more able learners. Please keep an eye out for special events and initiatives later in the year to celebrate our 40th anniversary.

As always, please do get in touch if we can be of any help and I wish you all well for the new academic year.

 

Tags:  Challenge Award  Challenge Framework  cognitive challenge  collaboration  CPD  enquiry  networking  professional development  research  school improvement 

Permalink | Comments (0)
 
Registered charity no: 1125907 Company no: 06604325