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. 

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.

Dr Ann McCarthy, NACE Research & Development Director

At NACE, research and development lies at the heart of our work. Using research findings from within and outside education, whether contemporary or historic, we have an evidence base on which to develop our understanding of cognitively challenging learning. Our publication “Making space for able learners: cognitive challenge - principles into practice” provided colleagues with practical guidance based on case studies from NACE member schools. The findings from this research, alongside the NACE Challenge Development Programme and associated resources, provide support for schools wishing to become outstanding providers. Our more recent activities have included work with schools in Wales on the new curriculum for Wales, as well as focusing on the development of early years provision, oracy, rethinking assessment and an increased understanding of metacognition and perfectionism. 

What are the NACE R&D Hubs?

An important facet of our evidence-based practice is the NACE Research and Development (R&D) Hubs programme. The R&D Hub approach to research and development is based on teacher enquiry. This is a core tool used by teachers to make informed choices and systematic decisions supported by evidence. It enables teachers to measure the impact of their actions and as a result make purposeful changes to curriculum and pedagogy. 

Each NACE R&D Hub brings together a community of like-minded practitioners who want to develop their own classroom practice and share this with others. Each Hub develops academic thinking relating to a specific theme and asks a “Big Question” about existing practice. 

This academic year our three Hubs explored the following themes: (1) the influence of pedagogy on curriculum, (2) perfectionism and (3) cognitively challenging learning within the new Curriculum for Wales. Hub leaders provided participants with guidance on some existing research and reading resources. Participants were then encouraged to examine their own classrooms and present examples of practice which might be refined, improved or changed. They were able to articulate outcomes they wanted to achieve and potential changes which they might make to cause this to happen. Working from a classroom-based hypothesis they then developed a question in the form “If I… will pupils…?”

Through teacher enquiry we have been able to help teachers to understand the complexity surrounding the development of cognitively challenging learning environments. They have examined practice which improves cognition and cognitive skills. They have increased learners’ understanding of themselves and what is needed to learn well. Through their actions to refine provision for highly able learners they have had a positive impact on all learners. Through the Hubs, participants have developed their academic voices, which has enabled them to share their ideas more widely within their schools, in the NACE community, and with their networks of schools.

Theme 1: Pedagogy and the curriculum

In this Hub, led by Copthorne Primary School (Bradford), participants examined ways in which a focus on aspects of pedagogy impacts on a cognitively challenging curriculum. This reflects NACE’s belief that by creating cognitively challenging learning environments and refining provision for more able pupils, pedagogy will improve, and all pupils will benefit. 

Aspects of pedagogy which teachers determined could be central to their enquiry interests included:

• Higher-order questioning
• Curriculum organisation 
• Designing rich and extended talk opportunities
• Developing pupils’ enquiry skills
• Developing collaboration and language skills
• Use of manipulatives and practical resources
• Live modelling
• Developing independence

Teachers took time to reflect on their current practice and discussed features of their work which they would like to develop. They posed questions in line with the enquiry model and then refined the questions to provide a precise focus on an area for refinement and analysis. All teachers found it useful to have the time and space to think more deeply about strategies to challenge the more able. They were able to share some great examples of analysis of the impact of their interventions.

Pupil engagement increased in most cases and teachers showed that they were more confident and better equipped to challenge the more able across the curriculum. Through engagement with this hub teachers built up a wider range of teaching strategies. They have evidence to show that these strategies work to deepen understanding. Examples of impact included the use of manipulatives in maths, retrieval practice for GCSE revision, live modelling, extended talk and opportunities to develop reasoning skills. 

Theme 2: Perfectionism

This Hub’s focus on perfectionism built on the work NACE has undertaken with York St John University in this field over the past few years. The original research examined the impact of raising awareness of perfectionism and helping young people to understand more about the associated traits. While that initial research focused on key stage 4 pupils, teachers in the Hub were able to use the information and resources developed to work with a wider age range. The question here was “Can a single classroom-based lesson improve student-reported knowledge about perfectionism and a willingness to seek support if needed?” The materials used to support the teachers’ enquiry projects are available for all schools here. 

Teachers engaged in the enquiry found that some pupils already understood what was meant by perfectionism but did not necessarily appreciate the different “flavours” of perfectionism. Pupils’ response to this information was strongly positive. Some reported that it helped them to reduce stress and worry as they prepared for examinations. Others recognised some aspects of perfectionism in themselves. They learnt about the difference between being a perfectionist (which could lead to negative outcomes) and wanting to do well (as a positive trait). 

Not all aspects of the enquiries were positive, as one target group was taken out of class, which caused them to worry about missing other activities. It was widely felt that raising awareness as a part of developing health and wellbeing for all is an important step forward in schools. One Hub participant commented that it would be useful to continue to explore the impact of the perceived expectations of others (e.g. parents, teachers, peers), and ways of creating a culture which emphasises doing one’s best rather than attaining a certain outcome.  

Schools need to consider the effects of pressures on pupils from their peers, their teachers and their parents and carers. How can an improved understanding of perfectionism become more widely shared within schools? How can school culture adapt to reflect this knowledge about perfectionism?

Theme 3: Cognitive challenge within the new Curriculum for Wales

Led by Bishopston Comprehensive School and Ysgol Gyfun Gwyr (Swansea), this Hub sought to develop cognitively challenging learning experiences within the new Welsh Curriculum. To do this each participant focused on a key aspect of self-regulation or metacognition within their teaching. They then examined the impact on the resilience and ambition of their pupils within their learning. This group selected a wide range of starting points in response to this question. 

One school was acutely aware of how highly context-bound resilience and metacognitive skills can be. They found that working with pupils on specific workload issues was more useful than additional revision. They also found peer support and advice could increase the effectiveness of working practices. Another participant also used peer collaboration to support some GCSE German students. This led to a greater understanding of explicit learning strategies and an improved linguistic range. Another school with older pupils tackled the issue of cognitive overload through the introduction of planning templates. The belief was that students have a negative attitude towards essay questions due to high content and cognitive overload. This affects their ability to achieve the highest marks, since they miss out key content when answering questions. During the enquiry period students’ marks improved, as did their attitudes to essay writing. They found that having “chunks” of information rather than one overwhelming larger piece of writing was easier to manage.

The use of explicit teaching and modelling by both the teacher and other pupils can impact on learning, as was evidenced above in GCSE classes. Another example of this was to introduce younger pupils to higher-order question types. When pupils understand what is possible, they can adapt their learning. In this school the intervention led to pupils setting themselves challenging questions which they sought to answer. They could reflect on the learning of others and guide them to improve responses. They took greater responsibility for their own learning and were more resilient. The quality of written responses have become more sophisticated, exhibiting a greater depth of knowledge. 

In total contrast to the teacher explaining and modelling learning, another participating school trialled the “silent way method” with Year 8 pupils. For this method to work, the teacher does not explain each step but remains silent to enable pupils to discuss and discover the learning processes themselves. This took place in a mathematics class where pupils were skilled in routine and algorithmic responses but were less resilient in solving problems. When pupils were asked to investigate and discover the steps needed to solve problems, they became more active in their learning and showed greater resilience when faced with new problems.

NACE R&D Hub participating schools 2021-22

Despite the pressures experienced by schools over the last year, we were delighted to have a diverse range of schools participating in R&D Hubs programme this year. These included: 

• Bishopston Comprehensive School 
• Brooklands Farm Primary School 
• Chelmsford County High School
• Christleton High School
• Copthorne Primary School
• Dylan Thomas School 
• Furness Academy 
• Hartland International School
• Howell's School, Llandaff 
• Hydesville Tower School
• Kentmere Academy
• Pentrehafod School
• Laugharne Primary School
• Llwynypia Primary School 
• Lutterworth High School
• Malvern St. James
• Samuel Ryder Academy
• St. Albans RC High School 
• St. Cedd’s School
• St. Thomas More Secondary School 
• Storrs High School
• The College, Merthyr Tydfill
• The Cotswold School 
• The Mulberry House School
• Ysgol Caer Elen 
• Ysgol Gyfun Gwyr
• Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Bryn Tawe
• Ysgol Llanhari

Congratulations to all of those who persevered and completed their projects. We look forward to working with many of you, alongside new participants, next year.

NACE R&D Hubs 2022-23: join us next year...

What aspect of your own practice would you like to examine? Would you like an engaged community of peers to discuss this with? If you have not yet joined a NACE R&D Hub, now is the time to consider this. We believe the experience of engaging in a teacher enquiry project is one of the most effective ways to examine and develop your own practice, while engaging with current research and sharing insights with others.

Whether or not you have engaged in teacher-enquiry projects or belonged to a Hub before we would be delighted to welcome you next year. The Hubs are open to all NACE members, and those with more experience in teacher enquiry will make all new participants welcome and support them as they use this approach to developing expertise. 

Theme 1: Oracy for high achievement. If you or a colleague are interested in developing oracy in the classroom or across the school, you will want to join NACE Associate Dr Jonathan Doherty and the team at Copthorne Primary School in Bradford to examine the use of language for high achievement. Jonathan is currently researching oracy for NACE and is well-positioned to support the team at this leading NACE school to inquire into this subject at classroom level.

Theme 2: Rethinking assessment. If you have been thinking about the ways you currently use assessment, its position within teaching and learning, its effectiveness and value, you may want to join the Hub looking at rethinking assessment. This Hub is supported by NACE’s central team and led by Dr Ann McCarthy, who is examining the ways in which we can make better use of assessment to develop cognition, cognitive skills and learners’ metacognition. In this Hub participants will have an opportunity to examine assessment as learning and its place in cognitively challenging learning environments. 

Theme 3: Cognitive challenge within the new Curriculum for Wales. The third Hub will be led by Alison Sykes and her team at Bishopston Comprehensive School. This provides an opportunity for those working in the Hub this year to continue their enquiries in this field, while also welcoming other schools wishing to examine cognitive challenge within the new Curriculum for Wales.

All three Hubs will open with an online launch event at 3.30-4.45pm on Tuesday 27 September 2022.

If you or a colleague would like to join a Hub or learn more about the programme, please visit the NACE R&D Hubs webpage for more information, and register here for the online launch event.  

Challenge Award successes: celebrating challenge for all

Understanding and sharing what works: opportunities to get involved 

Creating cognitively challenging classrooms: new modular courses

• NACE core principles
• NACE research

Professor Rachel Lofthouse, Professor of Teacher Education and Director of CollectivED The Centre for Mentoring, Coaching and Professional Learning at Leeds Beckett University, explores the importance of mentoring in schools and poses some questions to help educators develop effective practices for sustained personalised professional learning.

Reflect back: what mentoring have you received or given?

When were you last mentored over a sustained period? Who gave you their time and attention? How was your professional practice shaped through focusing on details and contexts particular to you? Which aspects of being mentored do you remember with appreciation? Were there any causes of frustration?

Many teachers have only been formally mentored as a student or trainee teacher and as an NQT. It was essential then because mentoring enabled workplace learning. At this career stage, schools are workplaces that are strangely familiar from the trainee’s time as a pupil, but that soon throw up unfamiliar challenges as they became teachers. 

Stephen Billett (2011) draws our attention to the three key goals of workplace learning: knowing that the worker wants to be in that role, acquiring the initial skills needed in that role and developing relevant competencies for future workplace learning. In the case of student teachers, this would suggest that we need to firstly ensure that teaching is the student teacher’s desired goal; assuming that it is, we then need to help them to identify prospective specific career interests. We should also offer the support that student teachers need to help them to gain key occupational capacities; in other words, learning the skills needed to do the job as they enter the profession. Finally, workplace learning for student teachers should allow them as a new entrant into the profession to develop occupational competencies that they will need for future professional learning, ensuring that they have the skills needed to keep developing to meet future challenges.  

Be in the present: how does or could mentoring help you now?

What are you currently grappling with that you feel is just outside of your skillset? What gaps are you aware of in your knowledge base and how do you plan to remedy this? Who are you currently talking to and working with closely? Does this relationship have qualities of mentoring? Do you tend to take either a mentee or mentor stance? 

The training and induction period for teachers is relatively short and even with the new Early Career Framework (ECF), mentoring is still prioritised at the start of a teacher’s career. But if we recognise mentoring as a scaffolding practice for workplace learning, and if we remember that every year teachers face new challenges and take up new opportunities, then it is worth reflecting on the positive difference that mentoring in schools might make to teachers throughout their career.  

Through my research I have developed a model of professional learning (Lofthouse, 2018) which positions mentoring as one form of professional development practice. The model proposes that mentoring in schools can have most impact when the mentoring participants work with a sense of solidarity towards shared goals, take full account of the authentic realities of the school context, and are encouraged to be creative in developing approaches to practice. 

Think ahead: how could mentoring be developed in your school?

Would there be value in developing mentoring approaches that extend beyond current provision in your school? How might mentoring be enhanced to allow for sustained personalised professional learning? What capacity for growth might be generated through greater mentoring engagement? 

While all teachers and school leaders are rightly keen to address issues of workload, there are some important questions to ask about how we make the very best use of the resources available to us. Staffing is by far the greatest budgetary cost in a school and managing timetables and deployment time is a challenge. Adding additional engagement with sustained mentoring to those workloads and costs may seem unreasonable. But just flip that for a minute. Staffing is also the biggest resource that schools have; potential resides in each individual, as does expertise. 

My model is now known as the CoG Model of Professional Learning (Lofthouse, 2020). If we put mentoring at the heart of the model, we must ask ourselves, “Is mentoring helping us to learn and develop or has it just created more busy work?” CoG stands for Cycles of Growth; mentoring should enable learning to be cumulative, and new and effective practices to be generated. 

If we think ahead to developing more mentoring, we do so in the belief that it will trigger professional learning and thus change professional practices and behaviours. My research suggests extending mentoring could help to create schools where teachers and leaders are able to articulate their ideas and share their achievements through multiple internal and external networks. It can also reassure professionals that as they are always learning, it is OK to ask for both support and critique. This helps to open up access to new ideas and ensures that ideas and evidence are reviewed with an informed perspective. 

If mentoring is effective, professionals at all career stages learn to accept critique which is given in a generous spirit, and know that they can offer the same to others. Building this into the fabric of the workplace allows teachers and leaders to meet the challenges of their work by allowing their professional repertoires and expertise to expand, so that their schools become more effective in creating successful education for all. 

The take-away…

Being a mentor can share characteristics with Cinderella. It offers little glamour in professional lives and often happens behind the scenes, but it is essential. I lead a research and practice centre at Leeds Beckett University called CollectivED and we believe that both being mentored and offering mentoring can make a difference throughout professional lifespans (hence our use of the hashtag #MentorsMatter). The schools’ workforce is diverse and its challenges are significant, but the opportunities to make a real difference through education are real. As teachers and school leaders, it is important to know what can make that difference, and while we acknowledge that no single strategy fits all, there is a lot to be said for developing approaches which sustain personalised professional learning. Mentoring can support this.  

References 

• Billett, S. (2011) Workplace curriculum: practice and propositions, in Dorchy, F. and Gijbels, D. (Eds), Theories of Learning for the Workplace, Routledge, London, pp. 17-36. 
• Lofthouse, R. (2018) Re-imagining mentoring as a dynamic hub in the transformation of initial teacher education: The role of mentors and teacher educators, International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education, https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMCE-042017-0033. Available as open access document at http://eprints.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/5262/1/ReImaginingMentoringasaDynamicHubAMLOFTHOUSE.pdf
• Lofthouse, R. (2020) Creating and Engine Room for Learning, Carnegie School of Education Blog, https://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/blogs/carnegie-education/2020/11/creating-an-engine-room-for-learning/

A former secondary school teacher, Rachel Lofthouse is now Professor of Teacher Education and Director of CollectivED The Centre for Mentoring, Coaching and Professional Learning at Leeds Beckett University. You can contact Rachel via email and follow her on Twitter @DrRLofthouse / @CollectivED1. Free working papers are available via the CollectiveED website.  

NACE coaching and mentoring services

NACE offers coaching and mentoring services to support school leaders and practitioners at all career stages, helping to develop a wider culture of coaching and mentoring across the school. These services can be provided remotely or on-site, and are tailored to the meet the needs of each individual and organisational context. Find out more.