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! 

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. 

New network groups

Research network groups

We have amended our research programme slightly for the 2023/24 academic year, but the new programme will continue to be free to all NACE members. We will launch our new programme on Tuesday 10 October with our member webinar. It will follow the theme of how to undertake successful change in a school. Following our webinar, we will run a meeting each term in the style of our other popular network groups. There will be one group for classroom practitioners and one for members interested in conducting whole-school change. In addition, for Welsh colleagues, we will continue to run a hub studying effective change within the Curriculum for Wales. Dates for all of these meetings can be found here.

KS5 network group

We have a growing number of colleges joining NACE, in addition to a number of member schools with sixth forms. As a result, we will be introducing a new KS5 Network Group next year – an opportunity to connect with fellow KS5 leaders and practitioners to share experiences, raise questions and discuss current challenges and priorities. This group will run termly and will also be free to members. Register here.

We will continue to run our established Challenge Award Schools, More Able Leads and EYFS network groups.

Research updates

Making space for able learners: phase 2

We have been exploring two key strands in greater depth for the second phase of our Making Space for Able Learners project. The first of these is focused on effective approaches to assessment in the cognitively challenging classroom, exploring questions such as who assessment is for, how it fits within cognitively challenging learning, how to develop effective assessment practices, and what we need to rethink about assessment. The second focus builds on the importance of rich and extended talk and cognitive discourse, and further examines oracy and linguistics in the context of the classroom. We will be launching new resources, free for members, in the new year. More details will follow in our upcoming monthly newsfeeds – keep an eye out for the launch of these new resources.

Subject workshops

Our first set of subject workshops, for secondary colleagues, took place in January 2023. This one-day workshop event explored the balance of subject knowledge and creativity in how we ensure the needs of the most able learners are met. We then focused on the core subject areas of maths, English and science, drawing on the latest evidence and learning to explore the mechanisms of challenge in each subject and how we facilitate higher-order thinking. Delegates left with an understanding of what challenge means for their subject area, what it can look like in the classroom, and practical actions they could take back into school.

Due to the success of this event we will be running a half-day workshop for primary practitioners in November 2023, with a focus on the subjects of science, history and geography. We will also be offering another one-day workshop for secondary colleagues in January 2024, with a focus on three different subject areas – more details coming soon. The events will offer both member as well as multi-delegate discounts.

Exclusive NACE offers for groups/clusters of schools

We have received an increased number of enquiries from clusters of schools for both membership and participation in NACE’s Challenge Development Programme - working with NACE as a group of schools. We have previously introduced individual discounts on membership when schools join as a cluster, and we will now be offering significant discounts for groups of schools seeking to review and improve challenge for all through 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

Following the launch of our Challenge Ambassador Programme this time last year, I am delighted to welcome Toot Hill School, Southend High School for Boys and Ysgol Glan Gele as NACE’s first Challenge Ambassador schools. A reminder that if you have already been accredited with the Challenge Award on two or more occasions you will have the opportunity to apply to be 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 well for the new academic year. As always, please do get in touch if we can support you in any way.

NACE Challenge Ambassador schools

Member mailing

Keep an eye out for your NACE member mailing which will be with you for the start of September. The NACE wallplanner will contain the dates for our key events due to take place next year. Updates will be provided through our Monthly Newsfeeds as the year progresses. You will also receive a poster of our 40 benchmarks for all schools to work towards, along with an extract from our new updated essentials guide on “Leading for More Able” and more information on our Challenge Development Programme.

Supporting groups of schools

As part of my School-Centred Initial Teacher Training (SCITT) provided through an apprenticeship route into teaching, I’ve had access to schools and experts involved in the EXCEED Academy Trust in Bradford. Schools regard inclusion as a high priority and it is a recurring feature in training days and embedded into all aspects of the SCITT curriculum. 

Through my experiences on the course and in the classroom, I’ve become particularly intrigued by inclusion and what it looks like for more able learners. I’ve seen more able learning promoted through higher-order questioning, adaptive teaching and teaching for creativity. This has been an area I’ve reflected upon during my own teaching practice, where I wondered about effective strategies, the superficiality of some techniques employed, and how they could be made more effective without increasing workload.

The PGCE programme, in conjunction with Leeds Trinity University and EXCEED Academy Trust, encourages student teachers to critically examine research and other evidence and reflect on their own professional practice in relation to a specific learning need faced by pupils in school. Master’s Level study in the PGCE programme comprises two assignments each contributing 30 credits; these are professionally focused and are taught by blog co-author Dr Jonathan Doherty. The assignments build upon the strong thread of reflection in teaching, drawing together observations in schools and understanding from taught sessions at the university and in-school CPD. 

Inclusion remains high on education policy agendas. Inclusive education is based on the belief that all members of society have the right to participate in and have access to education on an equal basis. Inclusion is a fundamental right for all learners – not just those who are deemed ‘vulnerable’ or those having special education needs. The module and first assignment, ‘Supporting Individual Needs’, is intended to develop thinking around this theme and challenge values to enable effective inclusive teaching that are culturally and individually responsive so that all children can succeed.

This assignment uses reflection and critical incident theory to support meeting a specific need for a child. Becoming an effective teacher involves considerably more than accumulating skills and strategies. It involves critical reflection. The more teachers explore, the more they discover (Larrivee, 2000). 

What is critical incident analysis, and why use it?

Critical incident analysis (CIA) is an approach to understanding and dealing with challenges in everyday professional practice. The term ‘critical incident’ refers to an event or situation which marks a significant turning point or change for someone. Incidents that teachers deal with in everyday teaching become critical through reflection and then analysis. An incident becomes a critical incident as a result of 1) reflecting about it; 2) thinking critically about it; and then 3) applying an analysis framework to it. Critical reflection has several benefits for teachers: it informs future practice and informs appropriate action in similar future situations. 

How does it work in practice?

A number of models exist to support critical reflection, but I used McAteer et al. (2010) to explore an incident with a more able pupil that occurred in my classroom. The incident related to a more able Year 2 pupil working at greater depth and a far higher level than his peers. The lesson was teaching to include emotions in diary writing in English. He displayed classic signs of a high ability learner by finishing set work easily and then appearing to disengage in the lesson. Individual follow-up activities for him did not engage him either and his behaviour began to quickly deteriorate. He started chatting and I observed a snowball effect, disrupting other children.

In my analysis of this short classroom episode and applying the CIA framework, my immediate thoughts were of frustration that I had not met the boy’s individual needs. Later, through deeper reflection, conversations with my teacher and class-based mentor and my knowledge of more able learning, I was able to explore other perspectives with regard to the incident and consider ways to provide appropriate challenge for this boy in future. 

This included looking again at teacher assessment frameworks for writing, to understand in more detail what targets and requirements were needed for greater depth learners; annotating planning with a next step for any child who had met the success criteria of the lesson, which I, or any support staff could access to further their learning. I investigated teaching for creativity and methods such as teaching children that it is acceptable to make mistakes, working backwards and looking at gaps in knowledge. I reflected on the importance of taking time to identify the pupil’s learning on his writing journey and looking at greater depth and potentially higher year frameworks to support his learning. 

NACE’s guidance on cognitive load theory (available to members here) affirmed some of my assumptions and suggested that more able learners may not need to spend as much time on retrieval practices. I will now allocate more time to providing opportunities for independent learning activities which are rich in cognitive challenge. Reading research has made me consider the impact of providing more able children with advanced content and making it accessible in different ways, enabling better engagement. 

The experience has taught me much about teaching and extended my knowledge of more able learners. Going forward I will be better informed to identify where children are on their individual learning journeys and so quickly gauge next steps. The experience has also made me realise where I myself am on my own learning journey. I am not the finished article but have many positive aspects of my practice which I need to continually reflect upon. There are many sources to draw on for information and specific reflection that will allow other aspects of my teaching to fall into place. By being proactive in learning, such honest critical reflection will support me to gauge the needs of the children to further their journeys.

References

• Larrivee, B. (2000) Transforming Teaching Practice: Becoming the critically reflective teacher. Reflective Practice, 1:3, pp. 293-307
• McAteer, M., Hallett F. & Murtagh, L. (2010) Achieving your Masters in Teaching and Learning. Exeter: Learning Matters. 
  

But what’s the reality of actually doing that? How easy is it in our busy school lives to act upon and embed our newfound knowledge into our school culture? When’s a good time to broach a whole-school initiative and is that necessarily the first step?

Here are my musings on the matter and perhaps, even in the process of writing how I might go about this, I may find myself one step closer to realisation in my own school context.

1) Feedback to someone… anyone! 

I used a department meeting to consolidate my thoughts from the day and to pass on some of the excitement that I felt about what I’d seen and shared. I also reflected on a lot of the good things that we are already doing in our department (always good to big up your department with what they are already doing well!). As an English Department, we usually find ourselves at the forefront of anything to do with presentations, debates, talking in public. And we do it pretty well. But what I also realised whilst feeding the information back was that I was sure that good things were happening elsewhere in the school – and that’s, perhaps, where to start.

2) Find some time. 

I can hear your teacherly guffawing from here. Time is something we have precious little of and as not only a Head of Department but a working mum and wearer of many hats, I needed to be seriously realistic about where my priorities lie and what might actually be achievable. 

Without taking the lead on a whole-school development strategy in one fell swoop, I thought smaller. Microscopic in fact. I can hear my line manager’s words ringing in my ears already: “Don’t take on too much… We all need to strike that balance between trying to do everything and doing less, well.” I would do well to heed the latter. 

It’s not a question of whether improving students’ oracy skills will raise the attainment of all students; it was clear from the evidence presented at the NACE meetup that it will. Instead, the questions need to be: Does this align with whole-school strategies and development plans? What are the school’s priorities this academic year and next? What impact will this have in my context? And coming back to my first point, what are we already doing well?

3) Find out what’s already going on that’s good. 

This is my next step and the point where I find myself now. My plan – as Chloe Bateman suggested in her presentation at the meetup (summarised in this blog post) – is to find out what’s already good in my school. I have an awareness (you’d hope so!) of what is happening oracy-wise in the English Department but I’m acutely aware that it is not just the job of the English staff to develop and promote good oracy skills. My intention is to send a survey out to teachers asking them to firstly outline what oracy is, as I’m not sure many label it as such, and give concrete examples of where they develop this skill in their subject.

4) Start with small wins.

This is something that is key to our department philosophy and my approach to many things. Sharing what is already being done to promote good oracy by finding those nuggets and celebrating them with colleagues before introducing more ideas for staff to possibly adapt into their lessons. This may take the form of delivering a session of CPD or a presentation at one of our academic meetings or INSET, or it may be as simple as sending out a short video of “Have you tried…?” ideas. Chloe shared some great advice about “enhancing our existing curriculum, rather than distracting from it.” I will certainly also be following up with some of the other ideas shared at the meetup – but one step at a time!

Even in writing down my thought process, I feel fired up again. My eye-line has risen just above the mire of lessons, marking, administration and school events to look at that bigger picture about making a long-term, significant change to the way oracy is perceived in our school and, ultimately, raising our students’ confidence and skills in communication.

Elly Hayward is Head of English at Pangbourne College. You can follow her on Twitter @PangCollEnglish

Feeling inspired? Explore NACE CPD opportunities.

The recent NACE meetup in Didcot brought together member schools to explore the theme of oracy for high achievement. This ties in with NACE’s current research into the role of oracy within cognitively challenging learning. 

The context

Oracy is at the centre of good classroom practice, since it is through quality communication and the use of talk and language that thinking, knowledge and understanding are developed. There is increased awareness of the importance of high-quality oracy education and its significance across academic, professional, cognitive, social and emotional spheres. While the case for oracy is strong, schools are still coping with the impact of Covid-19 and lockdown. Many young people experience isolation, and the past few years of limited exposure to conversations, everyday interactions and in-person classroom exchanges, have deprived many of opportunities for rich talk and spoken language development. Vulnerable students and those from economically deprived backgrounds have been most affected and this has brought fresh urgency to the issue, as schools move on from the pandemic and seek to address current challenges of closing achievement gaps and taking oracy education to the next level.

Summary of the day

Ahead of the member meetup, colleagues were invited to submit oracy-based questions that would be explored during the course of the day. Examples of these were:

• How can teachers implement effective strategies for oracy without dramatically increasing workload?
• How can we best develop oracy for the most able in mixed ability classrooms?
• What are interesting activities to help pupils improve their confidence when public speaking, among their peers and people they don't know?
• What approaches are most effective in promoting oracy in group work so that it is productive and benefits all learners? 

I opened the day with an overview of the research context for oracy. Oracy is certainly not a new issue (with its beginnings going back to 1965), but despite its recognition since then, the status of oracy in the architecture of our education system does not fully reflect its value and importance to young people’s outcomes in school and life. We looked at the case for oracy with reference to research literature in language, education and neuroscience, before explaining how the needs of more able learners can be met through inclusive oracy education and cognitive challenge. 

Haili Hughes, Head of Education at IRIS Connect and Principal Lecturer at the University of Sunderland, took up the theme of oracy and confidence-building in her presentation. She developed this with reference to oracy and metacognition and mental schema and showed, as one example, how the approach of dialogic teaching promotes oracy and academic self-concept. Her explanation of knowledge and cultural capital was very interesting and relevant. 

Rebecca Earnshaw, CEO of leading oracy education charity Voice 21, shared her organisation’s commitment to providing a high-quality oracy education for every child and the vision to empower young people to use their voice for success. She made links to mental health, oracy being a process and a product of learning, and drew upon a range of research – including the Education Endowment Foundation findings that showed that students taking part in language interventions make five months additional progress over a year and this rises to six months for disadvantaged students – to further substantiate the importance of quality oracy education in schools. The audience was treated to several practical activities on ways to embed oracy in the curriculum. 

An important part of member meetups are the school case studies. The final speaker of the morning was Chloe Bateman, ECF Lead Facilitator and History, Religion and Philosophy Teacher at Maiden Erlegh School, who shared the story of how the school has established a whole-school culture of oracy. You can read Chloe’s summary here.

Following a networking lunch, where colleagues certainly put their speaking and listening skills to good use, the afternoon was given over to speed-sharing, the part of the day which provides an opportunity for colleagues to share their experiences and ideas with peers. These important discussions provided a knowledge exchange forum for classroom strategies to develop oracy that have been effective. Some examples of the brilliant ideas shared in the speed-sharing were:

• Focus on language in discussions and how to build it up (Tina Stinson at Thornton College)
• Explicit teaching of oracy benchmarks and ways to achieve them (Michelle Ginty and Viviana Young at Salusbury Primary School)
• Frayer Model of teaching Tier 2 and 3 vocabulary (Olivia Cornwell at Central Foundation Girls’ School)
• Displaying key terms for the lesson on the board, teaching their meaning explicitly using call-and-response to aid pronunciation, and directing students to use them during ‘turn and talk’ activities (Amy Lloyd at Haybridge High School)
• Vocabulary Bullseye (Beckie New at BrookField School)

You can read more about the ideas shared on the day here.

Key takeaways from the day

• Addressing the needs of more able learners can raise achievement for a much wider group of learners in a school by increasing challenge for all. Considering the needs of more able disadvantaged learners is crucial to ensuring an inclusive and fair curriculum. (See NACE core principles.)
• There is strong research evidence for the importance of high-quality oracy education. This is supported by education, psychology, language studies and neuroscience research. The significant impact of oracy is across academic, personal and life outcomes.
• Self-confidence through purposeful practice of discussions about current affairs and wider issues builds cultural capital and confidence. A focus on oracy helps students express their thoughts and feelings in a more structured and approachable manner that will also build academic self-concept.
• Embedding oracy into school culture with deliberate and explicit teaching of speaking and listening supports student progress and achievement. Every school is different and it is essential to identify your school’s oracy needs. Providing for more able learners is about creating a curriculum which gives opportunities for all children to flourish. (See NACE core principles.)

Share your experience

We are seeking NACE member schools to share their experiences of effective oracy practices, including new initiatives and well-established practices.
You may feel that some of the examples in this blog are similar to practices in your own school, or you may have well-developed models of oracy teaching and learning that would be of interest to others. To share your experience, simply contact us, considering the following questions:

• How can we implement effective oracy strategies without dramatically increasing teacher workload?
• How can we best develop oracy for the most able in mixed ability classrooms?
• What are interesting activities to help students improve their confidence when public speaking, among their peers and people they don't know?
• What approaches are most effective in promoting oracy in group work so that it is productive and benefits all learners? 
• How can we implicitly teach pupils to justify and expand their ideas and make clear opportunities to develop their understanding through talk and deepen their understanding?
• How do we evidence challenge for oracy within lessons?

View the slides from the day:

• Dr Jonathan Doherty
• Haili Hughes
• Chloe Bateman
• Membership updates

Read more:

• 6 ideas to develop oracy in your school
• 7 steps to establishing a whole-school oracy culture 
  

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.

It’s been a difficult time for everyone as we moved out of Covid restrictions this academic year. The spring term was one of the most challenging for schools since the start of the pandemic, and we can only hope that – after a well-deserved summer break! – we can now really begin to refocus our energies on planning to meet the needs of learners going forward.

NACE research themes for 2022-23

It is early days as we begin to unpick the impact of the last two years for learners and school staff alike, but we have chosen to focus our research next year on two areas:

1. Oracy for high achievement: this strand will explore whole-school oracy strategies in the context of cognitive challenge, in addition to effective oracy practices for high-achieving classrooms.

2. Rethinking assessment: this strand continues our investigation of effective assessment practices in the classroom, across all phases of teaching, including assessment through questioning, dialogic discourse and improved oracy.

Get involved…

If the themes above sound of interest, you can sign up to participate in the 2022-23 NACE R&D Hubs programme. This will comprise a Hub on the two themes above, along with a third Hub focusing on cognitive challenge within the new curriculum for Wales. To learn more, register for the online launch event, taking place on Tuesday 27 September. Sign up here. 

Registrations are also open for our first member meetup of the new academic year, “Speaking Up – Developing Oracy for High Achievement”, which will take place in Didcot on Tuesday 18 October. Sign up here.

And finally, next term will also see the launch of our new Challenge Award Ambassador Schools programme, which will be open to all schools who have been accredited with the NACE Challenge Award on two or more occasions. Further details coming soon!

I wish you all a relaxing and enjoyable summer break and I hope you get the chance to recharge your batteries ready for the new academic year.

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.  

As the first half of the spring term draws to a close, we know many schools are still struggling with staff absence – but things are starting to improve for many, and we are all looking forward to planning ahead over the coming months. Here at NACE, we are particularly excited to be developing our two key research themes for the year: assessment and language.

Rethinking assessment

The focus of our next member meetup, at New College, Oxford on 23 March, will be “rethinking assessment”. Spaces are limited, so register now if you would like to join us.

Ahead of this event, NACE Research and Development Director Dr Ann McCarthy’s latest article explores the question: “How does a focus on metacognition impact on assessment practices in the classroom?” Many people still view assessment as an activity which is separate from the art of teaching – simply a list of checks and balances required by the education system to set targets, track learning, report to stakeholders and finally to issue qualifications. However, those who are using assessment routinely, and at all points within the act of teaching and learning, understand the true power of assessment. 

Read more:

• How can a focus on metacognition lead to more effective assessment practices in the classroom?
• Planning effective assessment to support cognitively challenging learning

Language in learning for high achievement

Our second research theme for this year is around the use of language in learning for high achievement. We are seeking to examine best practice in advanced comprehension, literacy and oracy, allied to high achievement, within our NACE member schools. We want to develop an understanding of the current backdrop to the development of comprehension, literacy and oracy skills in schools, including the effects of the pandemic on teachers and learners.

As part of this theme, we are keen to explore the key role of language across all subject areas – and this month we are focusing on the importance of language in mathematics. Having spent nearly 30 years teaching the secondary mathematics curriculum, I know the importance of language in this subject is too often overlooked. If we want to take our students on a pathway to being mathematical and thinking like mathematicians, we should build in language acquisition and precision reading at every stage of their learning.

Read more:

• The importance of language in mathematics
• 3 activities to improve the use of mathematical vocabulary in your classroom
• Metacognition for higher-attaining learners: “the debrief”

Get involved: share your school’s experience

The contributions of NACE member schools have been central to the first phase of our Making Space for Able Learners research initiative and will remain so as we develop the second phase of this project. 

If you are interested in learning more about or contributing to any aspect of our research work this year, please contact communications@nace.co.uk.

Colleagues at this stage in the year will be fully into the cycle of NACE Research and Development Hub meetings and working to finalise their enquiry projects for this year. It is a privilege to be part of the R&D Hub based at Copthorne Primary School in Bradford. The meetings are a rich exchange of ideas for teacher-led projects under the umbrella theme of exploring how curriculum design can arise from a focus on cognitively challenging learning experiences and an understanding of the pedagogical models and practices which facilitate this. The discussions and planned research are fine examples of teacher enquiry in action, which prompted me to write this blog post.

What do we mean by teacher enquiry?

A variety of terms exist for this work – classroom enquiry, action research, practitioner research – and it has a long history in educational research. Researchers Marilyn Cochran-Smith and Susan Lytle (2009, p.123-4) described teacher enquiry as, “neither a top-down nor a bottom-up theory of action, but an organic and democratic one that positions practitioners’ knowledge, practitioners and their interactions with students and other stakeholders at the centre of educational transformation’’. 

It is associated with small-scale investigations carried out by teachers in their own classrooms and schools. They don’t just observe it, they do it! Underpinning this and recognised is that teachers’ engagement with enquiry will provide answers to questions that they want answers to, and in turn will generate new knowledge.  

What are the benefits of teacher enquiry?

As is in evidence from the NACE R&D Hub meetings, the characteristics of this type of research are that it is undertaken by individual teachers or groups of teachers, it is conducted in schools with the purpose of improving classroom practice, and it leads to shared and greater learning. Teacher enquiry recognises that teachers are uniquely positioned to provide the insider’s view of how teachers and learners co-construct knowledge. Teacher enquiry in the form of short, focused projects is “authentic” because it is close to everyday classroom work; it is “ethical” because of how the enquiries are conducted with regard to confidentiality and anonymity; and it gives “voice” to represent and amplify this important work undertaken by teachers. In our Hub meetings at Copthorne, it is obvious to see the extensive thought processes that have gone into formulating the research questions for the different projects.

What does it look like in practice?

Research of this type has a definite shape to it, although each project in our R&D Hub is slightly different. Many models exist to illustrate teacher enquiry, but they are all based upon similar principles of planning, taking action and evaluation (Coghlan, 2019). 

Stage 1: conceptualisation

 Enquiries begin with the formulation of a question (sometimes referred to as a hypothesis). This is the conceptualisation stage. The question is posed by the teacher(s) or in conjunction with students and must be “researchable” with the potential to answer an issue in the classroom. The NACE R&D Hubs format for enquiry, “If I do X, will Y happen?” is extremely helpful in making this concise and the research viable.  

Stage 2: intervention

After the question is finalised (and often shortened for clarity), comes the intervention stage, where the investigation is planned in detail, a target group identified and baseline information from the target group set up. 

Stage 3: analysis

When sufficient data is gathered, it is organised in categories and then begins the analysis stage, where analysis of key themes leads to deeper understanding. 

Stage 4: evaluation

Finally, after 6-8 weeks, sufficient time to observe physical change taking place, conclusions are drawn which relate back to the original question and typically identify implications for classroom practice (or indeed further enquiry) arising from the investigation. This evaluation stage might include its value to the pupils, to the teacher’s professional learning, or more broadly to organisational learning. 

Whilst these four stages may appear to be a linear process, they are not: the shape is very much cyclical, returning to the original question posed.

How does this relate to provision for more able learners?

There are many benefits to conducting enquiry work focusing on more able learners. It helps create a space for busy teachers to stop and examine existing ways of working. It is situation-specific: it enables the examination of one’s own situation and leads to a better understanding of context. It is a participatory process, all about doing. It builds on teachers’ extensive knowledge of classroom practice already. It is collaborative, as the sharing of ideas with others in NACE R&D Hubs demonstrates. It involves robust evaluation: bringing a systematic and disciplined way of working that leads to new understandings and creates a bona fide evidence base, so important for developing how best to support more able learners in primary and secondary school contexts.

How to do it well: five top tips for teacher enquiry work

1. Spend time getting the research question right. It must be clear and specific. For example, “How does the use of teacher written feedback improve learning in History for more able learners?”
2. Set a baseline at the start of the project. This might be teacher assessment or achievement data.
3. Use a variety of ways to collect data. This could be a short questionnaire, focus group interviews, set tasks or targeted lesson observations.
4. Involve more able students from the start. Involve them in helping to plan the project. Talk to them about how this is going to happen and their view of it in implementation.
5. Share your work. This might be within a school at a research meeting or a staff meeting. Consider going wider. A conference perhaps or writing the enquiry up for publication. This is new and important work. Share your successes!

A final word from Lawrence Stenhouse (1981) who commented that, ‘‘it is teachers who in the end will change the world of the school by understanding it’’.

References

• Cochran-Smith, M. & Lytle, S. (2009) Inquiry As Stance. New York: Teachers College Press
• Coghlan, D. (2019) Doing Action Research in your Organisation. London: Sage.
• Stenhouse L. (1981) What Counts as Research? British Journal of Education Studies. Vol XXIX, No. 2. June.

About the NACE R&D Hubs

NACE’s Research and Development (R&D) Hubs offer opportunities for NACE members to exchange effective practice, develop in-school research skills and collaborate on enquiry-based projects. Each Hub brings together members from all phases, sectors and contexts to share and augment the available evidence on what works for more able learners. Find out more here, or contact us to express your interest in joining the R&D Hubs next academic year.

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

There were many inspiring moments and invaluable exchanges during the day, with some key themes, common challenges and shared aspirations emerging. Here are 10 key takeaways to reflect on:

At the leadership level…

1. Responsibility for more able provision and cognitive challenge should be shared by all. The idea that it’s all up to the more able lead needs to change. The importance of developing cognitive challenge for the more able – and for all learners – should be shared, owned and understood by all as a non-negotiable.

2. Challenge should not be seen as an add-on, but integrated fully into all lessons. Placing the needs of more able learners at the centre of curriculum design and pedagogy will deepen the learning for all. Middle leaders are crucial to this process and, for larger schools, there should be an advocate for more able learners within every department. There is scope for Heads of Department to be more involved in the organisation of learning to support cognitive challenge.

3. Articulating and sharing the vision is key. The “why” of more able provision and cognitive challenge needs to be understood and owned by everyone in the school – and this will support the points made above and below.

4. High-quality ongoing professional development is crucial to supporting these goals, whether this is for existing staff to improve their teaching in line with the vision of the school or the training of new staff. Staff should not, however, be a slave to the chosen instructional model for a particular school. They should be encouraged to take risks too.

5. Enrichment has a role to play – but should not be the sole focus. Enrichment opportunities are important so learners can develop their skills in a variety of different ways, but having challenge at the heart of every lesson should avoid the need for academic interventions at a later date. Utilising every second of every lesson is key.

And in the classroom…

1. Finding the right balance between direct instruction, facilitating learning and activating learning is important but not easy. Delegates in the practitioner strands felt that the balance was not always right. Understanding the role of each approach within the context of cognitive challenge could help here, as could the use of flexible approaches such as “cutaway”.

2. At primary level, it was generally felt there was a tendency towards a greater level of direct instruction in the core subjects. There were more opportunities, within foundation subjects, to explore the other types of learning. This is due to the large amount of coverage in the core, but a balance needs to be achieved. “How can I show my learning in a variety of ways?”

3. At secondary level, the same applied to KS4 for more direct instruction and KS3 for a more varied style of learning. Again, the pressure over content appeared to be the reason for this –  but our more able students need to be reflective and evaluative learners if they are to reach their full potential. “When do we stop direct instruction and let go?”

4. The “why” needs to be explained to other stakeholders too – particularly parents and carers. We can then all work to a shared vision.

5. Again, the need for high-quality CPD was raised as being crucial for ensuring cognitive challenge is at the heart of every lesson. The strategy for more able provision needs to be embedded at a whole-school level.

Read more:

• Why focus on more able learners?
• Common myths and misconceptions about more able learners
• Developing a whole-school approach to more able: roles and responsibilities
• 3 key ingredients for cognitive challenge
• Making Space for Able Learners – overview of NACE’s research on cognitive challenge, with the option to purchase copies of the “Making Space” publication for your school
  

Conference recordings now available to purchase for your school

If you missed the conference, or participated and would like to revisit some of the sessions or share them with colleagues, we’re offering the opportunity to purchase recordings of the conference keynotes and workshops, including:

• Keynote 1: Creating a culture of cognitive challenge
• Keynote 2: Creating a language-rich climate for learning
• Workshops Strand A: Primary leadership - led by NACE Challenge and Curriculum Development Director Christabel Shepherd
• Workshops Strand B: Secondary leadership - led by NACE CEO Rob Lightfoot
• Workshops Strand C: Primary practice - led by NACE Curriculum Development Director Dr Keith Watson
• Workshops Strand D: Secondary practice - led by NACE Associate and Challenge Award Assessor Rob Buck
• Closing comments: summary from each workshop strand

Cost for the full package: £199 (NACE members) / £249 (non-members)

Please note: recordings are of the main presentations only; breakout conversations and group discussions are not included. Handouts of the slides from each session are also provided.

Purchase the conference recordings for your school

To learn more about any of the themes mentioned above, or for information about how NACE could support your school, please contact communications@nace.co.uk

1. Recognise the importance of mentoring

The role of the mentor is vital. In Greek mythology, Mentor was the wise counsel to the inexperienced learner, and it is this knowledge and wisdom of what it means to be a professional that is important to a new teacher alongside the ways in which they can develop their teaching. The mentor has a critical role to play in supporting wellbeing, nurturing, encouraging and helping the ECT to develop the resilience needed as a teacher. Training for the role of mentor and time to invest in the process is of high priority and needs recognition within the school of the importance of the mentoring role.

2. Consider the use of coaching (done well!)

Some ECT programmes are emphasising the use of instructional coaching to improve teaching. This style of coaching has much to offer – however, it is worth remembering this is only one element of coaching and an even smaller subset of the wider mentoring required for an ECT. Coaching is based upon relationships with trust a fundamental aspect. It is a conversation-based approach to moving someone from where they are to where they want to be. It takes knowledge and skill and takes time to learn. It needs training, not in a one-hour session nor even a one-day course but instead over time to embed skills that will help others flourish. It has enormous potential for teacher development when done well.

3. Support for early career teachers’ wellbeing

It is important to remember the ECF is not an assessment tool. There is a danger that the standards become a tick-list to be ‘covered’ rather than understood. A worst-case scenario sees an early career teacher reviewing learning materials late into the night and being in danger of burnout. A skilled mentor will help manage that and ensure the wellbeing of the ECT is looked after. 

4. A professional development programme with a varied diet

This can include observations of outstanding teachers – but be careful here. It is crucial that the observations are guided by a skilled coach or mentor. When teachers wanted to visit my former school, they had to have a coach with them – “no tourists here” was our phrase. The nuances of teaching often need pointing out. The diet should also contain research reading and discussion, projects, tasks that widen experiences (hear a child from every year group read this morning, for example) and the chance to discuss and debate. Learning from knowledgeable professional colleagues, not solely the assigned mentor, is also vital. Using external organisations can enhance programmes by bringing in particular knowledge and expertise to ensure the teachers have access to up-to-date specialist research-informed information. 

5. Provide opportunities for early career teachers to network 

One of the Teaching School programmes I delivered had 120 attendees for the year. The buzz in the room on professional development days was great and the sharing of experiences and the moral support provided was an essential part of the programme. I hope this is not lost with more remote and recorded delivery.

6. Develop a rounded knowledge of pedagogy and curriculum

There is much to know and learn. It will take time both for subject knowledge and pedagogical understanding to become embedded, building on training at the ITT stage. For instance, the ECF states that: “Pupils are likely to learn at different rates and to require different levels and types of support from teachers to succeed.” 

This should include considering the importance of effective provision for more able learners, which could be missed. While ability is not fixed and we know that neuroplasticity means our brains are not hard-wired, it is also evident that some pupils achieve significantly above their age-related expectation or may display talents across the curriculum. It is important as teachers that we reflect on this and consider how we develop the kind of cognitively challenging classrooms that learners can thrive in. How do we extend thinking and ensure our pupils are challenged daily? Any ECT programme needs to include how we challenge all learners and is important the new teacher receives expert training in this, along with the other elements listed. 

All six of these areas are important, but I return to the key point made. The mentor remains central to the whole process. If you want to know why then look at what this former NQT had to say on the subject of her mentor:

Of course, that mentor was very well trained over time. If the Early Career Framework is delivered well, that is how it should be for all new teachers.

NACE’s support for early career teachers and the staff who support them

At NACE we have created a range of resources to help early career teachers and their mentors. We have expertise which will not be present in most ECT progammes so our offer can be used to complement existing programmes. This includes:

• A new series of online bite-sized training sessions and resources that cover topics such as identification, planning, ensuring challenge and practical teaching ideas. This covers both the ‘What’ and the ‘How’ to develop the knowledge of ECTs in relation to more able learners. 
  
• Coaching and mentoring support – bespoke to you and your school; can be used to support teachers and leaders at all career stages.
  
• Early Career Teachers Network Group – meeting termly online – where questions are asked, ideas shared and experiences reflected upon in a supportive, friendly, motivational setting. The next meeting is scheduled for 4.00-5.15pm on 16 November 2021 – book your place now, or check our events calendar for upcoming sessions.
• A NACE Essentials guide on ‘Getting started with more able learners’ (available in full for NACE members, or join our mailing list to access the free sample version).

Read more about NACE’s ITT and ECT support

Why should schools focus on critical thinking skills?

What is the most effective approach to teaching critical thinking skills?

Reference values: the theory…

Reference values in the classroom…

What next? Gamification and beyond…

1: Controversies and applications

In Chapter 1, Jonathan Beale discusses the greatest problem facing educational neuroscience: how to move from neuroscientific evidence to its application in education. Beale argues that making this move without due attention to certain methodological hazards leaves educational neuroscience open to the accusation of ‘scientism’: excessive belief in the power or value of science. Beale offers suggestions on how to avoid scientism in educational neuroscience.

In Chapter 2, Gill Little shares ways that Queen Anne’s has attempted to bridge the gap between educational neuroscience and educational practice. Little offers school leaders strategies to support the introduction of an evidence-informed teaching and learning culture in their own educational contexts.

2: Becoming a successful learner

In Chapter 3, Iro Konstantinou and Jonnie Noakes argue that for schools to equip pupils with the skills to become engaged citizens who can thrive in a diverse society, character education needs to be embedded within a school’s curriculum, co-curriculum and wider culture. They outline evidence-informed practices that can foster some of the most important character skills for a changing world.

In Chapter 4, Amy Fancourt and Joni Holmes consider the extent to which working memory underpins many aspects of learning. They review research on the development of working memory and ways to use this research to support all learners, through recognising individual differences in working memory capacity. 

3: Motivation

This section approaches motivation through three psychological concepts: motivational contagion, mindset and executive functioning. In Chapter 5, Laura Burgess, Patricia Riddell and Kou Murayama offer practical strategies for harnessing the advantages of motivational contagion in the classroom. They explore the mechanisms underlying the transfer of attitude and motivation within classroom contexts, and offer recommendations on how teachers can use this knowledge to foster academic motivation.

In Chapter 6, Catherine Lutz investigates the relationship between mindsets and motivation. Research shows that an individual’s mindset and personal motivations are important variables that influence attainment and enjoyment. Lutz investigates how these may influence academic achievement and professional satisfaction in the classroom. Lutz offers practical applications to support the development of growth mindset and motivation.

In Chapter 7, Laurie Faith, Bettina Hohnen, Victoria Bagnall and Imogen Moore-Shelley offer an account of how an approach towards teaching and learning centred around executive functioning skills can develop self-regulation, metacognition and motivation. The chapter provides an overview of the development of executive functioning skills in primary and secondary school-aged children and outlines an approach for building executive functioning skills which is currently being used in primary and secondary schools. 

4: Wellbeing

In Chapter 8, Frances Le Cornu Knight explains the vital role of sleep in creating optimal conditions for learning and healthy development throughout adolescence. Through discussion of current research on sleep, Knight outlines the reasons for sleep deprivation in the adolescent population today. The chapter offers recommendations for schools to promote the vital role of sleep to learning and well-being and strategies that can improve sleep hygiene. Knight recommends that we seriously consider the potential value of introducing a later school start time.

Gratitude has been shown to be important for improving well-being, and recent neuroscientific research suggests that feelings of gratitude are linked with the activation of brain areas associated with thinking about others, judging subjective value, emotion, motivation and reward. Chapter 9 explores the impact that gratitude can have on adolescents’ subjective social well-being and social cohesion. Sarah Buckingham and Joseph Buckingham draw upon current research on gratitude to show the connection between expressions of gratitude and pro-social behaviour. They argue that a great deal of life satisfaction is connected to the amount of gratitude experienced. The chapter offers practical suggestions for schools to develop pupils’ gratitude.

5: Subject-specific research

The final section covers studies that apply educational neuroscience to mathematics, science and music. In Chapter 10, Annie Brookman-Byrne and Iroise Dumontheil provide an overview of the neural changes during adolescence and consider how knowledge of these can be used to enhance teaching and learning. They consider the role of inhibitory control in the acquisition of counterintuitive concepts that are typically found in science and mathematics. The chapter outlines ways to encourage adolescents to employ more widespread use of inhibitory control mechanisms to strengthen this executive function.

In Chapter 11, Daniel Müllensiefen and Peter Harrison explore how music can influence adolescents’ cognitive and socio-emotional development and how music, as a model of brain plasticity, could form an effective teaching intervention. The authors report results from a new study that tracks the development of musical abilities together with cognitive and socio-emotional skills across adolescence. They argue that our current knowledge of brain plasticity and the changes that occur in the brain as a result of musical learning can be used to support mindset teaching interventions. The authors offer a framework for developing such an intervention.

The BrainCanDo Handbook of Teaching and Learning is available to buy now from Routledge. For a 20% discount on this and purchases across the Routledge range, log in to view all current NACE member offers.

Read more:

• Blog post: Neuroscience and learning: reference values in the classroom (reflections from a participant in BrainCanDo's Neuroscience for Teachers course)
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Mentoring matters. It can be instrumental in winning the battle with teacher retention that we have been fighting in this country for the last decade, as the support that a mentor can offer to an early career teacher is invaluable. With the nationwide roll out of the Department for Education’s ‘Early Career Framework’ in September 2021, it seems that the government have finally realised this, as for the first time in my 15-year teaching career, the importance of mentoring is being recognised and celebrated. Millions of pounds have been earmarked for mentor training and their skills and expertise will be rewarded with many national qualifications that are being launched up and down the UK.

However, mentoring is not just a great support to teachers who are at the start of their career; it also benefits those who have been in the profession for a while longer – I know because I was one of them. Six years ago, I was not far off a decade into my career and after reaching a leadership position in a school, I realised that I wasn’t happy. I felt adrift. There was no support from anyone above me in the capacity I needed; of course, they helped me to fulfil school and department priorities but I missed the nurturing and guiding voice from an expert colleague that I so desperately craved to choose my next steps. 

Not just for early career teachers

No matter what stage of your career you are at, being mentored can have fantastic results and can re-vitalise and re-energise your focus. Research from Hargreaves (2005) asserted that mid-career teachers who have been in the classroom for between 8 and 15 years can be more comfortable in their jobs, yet “still enthusiastic and flexible enough to respond to change in a broadly positive way” (Hargreaves, 2005: 979). However, there are some teachers at this stage of their careers who feel “disillusioned, overworked and unappreciated” (Hargreaves, 2005: 979). Experienced teachers are worth their weight in gold in a school and having a mentor to talk things through with, who offers advice but supports them with finding their own way forward, could be so important in the fight to keep these teachers in the classroom. 

The relationship between a mentor and their mentee is a dynamic collegiate process, which fosters a sharing of professional and personal experiences and expertise between practitioners. It can accelerate the learning and development process, while not depriving the mentee of their own independence, autonomy or responsibility. But not only is mentoring beneficial for those who are being mentored, it can be extremely rewarding for mentors too. 

What is in it for me?

In the decade I have been mentoring, I have had so many positive experiences, learning opportunities and development from my role as a mentor. These include:

• Improving my communication and interpersonal skills;
• Demonstrating and developing my leadership capacity;
• Being challenged by new experiences;
• Getting the chance to reflect on my own pedagogy and experience;
• Learning new approaches and perspectives which may impact on my own approach.

How does mentoring improve provision for students?

Research indicates that the biggest impact on student attainment is access to quality-first teaching in the classroom (EEF, 2017). Part of this is based on students being given high levels of challenge on a daily basis so that they are engaged and motivated in a secure learning environment with high expectations. To be able to do this, teachers need a deep understanding of their subject and the science behind the way students learn. If this is an area they lack confidence in, a mentor to help them develop this is invaluable. In addition, an extensive literature review on teacher job satisfaction has shown teachers who are satisfied with their jobs perform better (Nojani et al., 2012), so supporting colleagues through mentoring relationships and support systems will have a positive impact on student outcomes. The dialogue between mentor and mentee will also have a positive impact, as teachers become more confident to use a wider pedagogic range of techniques, so mentoring will impact on planning, monitoring and improving teaching quality (Lofthouse et al., 2010).

How can I create a mentoring culture in my school?

Having a mentoring programme in schools, which is available to all teachers – regardless of the stage of their career – clearly demonstrates a school’s commitment to developing their staff and shows they have strong values on continuous learning. Not only this, but it also emphasises the importance they place on having a supportive and collegiate community. 

To create a mentoring culture in your school, it is imperative that effective mentoring practices are part of your organisation’s culture. Part of this is seeing mentoring as the vital job it is and mentors receiving the support and profiles they deserve in school, where excellent mentors are celebrated. It is also important to periodically review teachers’ mentoring needs and mentors’ expertise, so that colleagues can be matched in their area of expertise. If there is a gap in expertise present, then mentor training is crucial in the success of any mentoring program. Finally, it is key that mentors are provided with the time, support and encouragement that they need to be able to do their job well. Many mentors are expertise-rich and time-poor, so giving them some extra support and free time to develop themselves fully as an excellent mentor will really be worth it.

References

• EEF (2018) ‘Attainment Gap Report.’ Available online at: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/public/files/Annual_Reports/EEF_Attainment_Gap_Report_2018.pdf
• Hargreaves, A. (2005) 'Educational change takes ages: Life, career and generational factors in teachers' emotional responses to educational change', Teaching and Teacher Education, 21(8), pp. 967-983.
• Lofthouse, R., Leat, D. and Towler, C. (2010) Coaching tor Teaching and Learning: A Practical Guide for Schools. Reading: CfBT Education Trust. Available from: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/media/wwwnclacuk/cflat/files/coaching-for-teaching.pdf
• Nojani, M. I., Arjmandnia, A. A., Afrooz, G. A., Rajabi, M. (2012) ‘The study on relationship between organizational justice and job satisfaction in teachers working in general, special and gifted education systems.’ Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 46, pp. 2900 – 2905.

Haili Hughes is an English teacher, journalist and speaker who has mentored teachers and ITT students for over ten years. She has written three education books. Her latest for Crown House is called Mentoring in Schools and is available to purchase now. 

For a 20% discount on purchases from Crown House and other offers from education publishers and providers, view our current member offers (member login required).

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.

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.

1. Curriculum organisation and design

2. Design and management of cognitively challenging learning opportunities

3. Rich and extended talk and cognitive discourse

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Join the 4Cs programme…

References and further reading

Identifying gaps in training and experience

Supporting NQTs within, across and beyond the school

First, may I say thank you and best wishes as the return to school starts. The process will be uneven and difficult. Over the last few weeks many of you have been experimenting with technology to try to maintain access to education for your students during the lockdown. I recently ran an online forum for a group of NACE members to discuss what they were doing. It was good to see good innovative practice in the schools involved, but also a willingness to share ideas and practice between individuals and schools.

I have been involved in technology in education for more than 30 years and reflecting on the NACE online forum discussion, I would like to offer some observations that I hope will help us all move forward to whatever the “new normal” may turn out to be.

The most important lesson for me is that the best way to develop teaching practice is through teacher-to-teacher communities of interest. Learning from peers about what works for them and adapting it to your own circumstances stimulates personal development and innovation. Tablets of stone from the great and good are at best blunt instruments.

Second, different teachers and different schools have for 30 years found themselves in quite different stages of development when it comes to using technology as a tool in teaching and learning. The crisis that we are living through gives us a chance to “level up” and enhance the profession to support our learners. It will not be quick, nor cheap.

A common mistake throughout the years is to believe that the children are so much more confident with the technology compared to the adults. Some teachers are reluctant to use technology for fear of looking foolish. Around five years ago I was in a presentation of a study on first-year undergraduates that came to an important conclusion: just because young people are very comfortable with technology, that does not mean that they are comfortable with learning through technology.

Learner confidence is best developed by thinking about “LEARNING technologies”, not “learning TECHNOLOGIES”. That is true for teachers too. My own experience is that three to five years’ experience is required for most teachers to develop full confidence in deploying technology as a learning tool, both in the classroom and increasingly beyond the school. That is why building teacher confidence lies at the heart of creating new practices that will be needed now and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

Let me illustrate part of that challenge, which came up during the recent online discussion.

My first schools conference on technology in learning was over 25 years ago, in Hull. With a local telephone company, Kingston Communications, despite being a poor city, Hull had better connectivity than elsewhere in the UK at that time. After my talk, a young primary teacher came up to me and gave me an example of what I had talked about. She had a shy eight- or nine-year-old girl who was nervous in class and sometimes difficult to engage. She had been off ill while they had been doing a project on a topic (from memory I think this was the Egyptians). The girl returned on the final day of the work. Much to the teacher’s surprise the girl volunteered that she had done the work while she had been off sick. The teacher asked if she could see it. The girl said sorry, it was on her home page. The teacher said that is OK, bring it in tomorrow. The girl instead offered to take the teacher to the library, which had a few internet-connected terminals. The teacher discovered a multimedia project of rich detail, beyond what she thought the girl was capable of, sitting on the girl’s home page in her dad’s work room. So, she asked if her parents had helped. She got a firm no. Her dad was a computer engineer and they had a significant set-up at home that the girl could use, while her dad was away. Her mother was not interested in computers.

The teacher had become upset because she saw it as her failing that she had underestimated the capability of this pupil and wondered how many others she had “let down”.

Over the years I have heard many similar stories. We had examples during the NACE online discussion. Online learning and online teaching are quite different. Some children thrive on the autonomy and others need much support, as is true in the classroom setting. You may have had surprises yourself recently or will encounter them over the coming weeks and months.

That is why I argue for building teachers as confident learners with technology as a precursor to students becoming confident learners. When you encounter such surprises: IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT.

To build teaching into a confident technology-ENABLED, not technology-driven, profession my takeaway message is that we need to build communities of teachers on- and off-line to share peer-to-peer the development of new and innovative practice at scale.

I hope as a patron of NACE to be able to play a part in your journey. Best wishes. Stay safe and well.

This article was originally published in the summer 2020 special edition of NACE Insight, as part of our “lessons from lockdown” series. For access to all past issues, log in to our members’ resource library.

Finding new ways to share inspiring reading material

Collaborating with teachers to support learning online

Promoting information literacy and tackling fake news

Investing time in online CPD

Planning for the future

As we slowly start to come out of this most unusual time and education returns to something approaching “normal”, there are many considerations to take into account in the school library and countless questions causing sleepless nights. How will we ensure students adhere to social distancing? Will we have to disinfect all the books? How can we best support students and staff who are displaying signs of having poor mental health? SLA and CILIP SLG have produced comprehensive guidance on the return to work and school library staff have been extremely proactive in putting plans in place for when their library reopens.

In a time of chaos society needs professionals to be the voice of reason and librarians are definitely rising to this challenge admirably.

SLA annual conference (19-20 June 2020) – 10% discount for NACE members

The School Library Association (SLA) is running its annual weekend conference “Digital Education: Reading and Learning Opportunities” as a virtual event on Friday 19 and Saturday 20 June, featuring an impressive line-up of experts in online education and learning technologies, joining authors and publishers in live presentations, discussions and demonstrations. Use the code NACE19 for a 10% discount when booking.

As a teacher of over 30 years I now think that it is vital that as a profession, or indeed as anyone remotely interested in working with people, teachers should know a great deal more about the important new discipline of neuroscience. As a result I became a founder member of Learnus: a voluntary group that sets out to form bridges between academics and practitioners, striving to inform those at the “chalk face” with knowledge and ideas that are currently sitting on the desks of various departments of neuroscience and cognitive psychology. If you are a curious teacher or an interested parent, if you are a student currently intrigued by changes in behaviour or a lay person simply wondering about brain processes, join me on 10 March 2020 for a live webinar on “Stuff about the brain for teachers” (sign in to the NACE members’ site for details and registration).

In the webinar I will talk about some case studies that drew me into the world of educational neuroscience before I try to unpick ideas on how memories are formed and indeed lost. A memory is an interesting biological idea. To form a memory new synaptic connections need to be produced; this requires effort and amino acids. Memories are also difficult to maintain; why for example do I tend to only remember about 10% of a book I have read, even though at the time I really enjoyed it? I will talk about synaptic pruning in adolescents and how brain maturation in the same age group can lead to interesting and sometimes challenging patterns of behaviour.

It is nearly universally accepted that sleep is vital to a healthy mind, but why is it that as humans we spend nearly 23 years of a normal lifetime engaged in such an unconscious state? Recent research on the eye has unearthed new cells that are responsible for our sensitivity to circadian rhythms, but why does it seem to have a different rhythm if you are an adult compared to a teenager? If we really need a certain amount of sleep, what is happening in the brain whilst it is happening? How does all of this impact on the daily life of a school or a family or an individual? I hope to delve into some of these questions using easily accessible research findings.

Interestingly as one grows from a baby to an adult the brain itself changes; cognitive psychologists refer to this as brain plasticity and brain maturation. Again, what are the cognitive psychologists talking about when they use such terms? How can a brain change fundamentally from the age of 10 to the age of 20 and what impact will this have on people’s behaviour? It is possible to learn things later in life, but why is it so much easier as small child? As I work through the presentation, hopefully some of these questions will be answered, although no doubt they will raise even more for future discussion and possible research.

Lastly I will touch upon the power of chemicals and in particular neurotransmitters. After all much of what the brain does and in a sense what it feels is directed by these chemicals. I will hopefully explore the impact of at least three of these chemicals; on memory acquisition, on behaviour, on sleep and on relationships. It is strange to think that we are slaves to these chemicals, but can we also control them or synthesize them?

To finish I will touch upon other ideas in behavioural psychology, taking some inspiration from a range of research that basically divides our behaviour into two main categories, some of which we find easy and some of which we find difficult. How do these systems alter life in a school or simply a classroom? How do the two systems impact on us as parents, leaders and managers?

Finally, I will ask about next steps. Any bridge is incomplete without two-way traffic. What is it that those of us that are not academics want researchers to do next? What questions in neuroscience do we have that need answering and how can we assist each other in coming up with answers that will go on to inform best practice in life?

Jeremy Dudman-Jones is Assistant Headteacher at Greenford High School and a Founder Member of Learnus, a community dedicated to bringing together educators and those who specialise in the study of the brain, using insights from high-quality research to improve and enrich learning for all. On 10 March 2020 Jeremy will present a free webinar for NACE members. To join the live session and/or to access recordings of all past webinars, visit our webinars page (login required).

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1. Understand the need for change

One approach to support more able learners in maths is using short application activities completed individually at the end of a lesson, after the children are taught a skill. In order to challenge myself (and them), I needed to challenge this mindset. 

While still teaching children the maths skills they need, I wanted to provide them with more opportunities to think as mathematicians. I experimented with moving from teaching them to do maths to allowing them to work as mathematicians.

Through use of NRICH’s free resources, learners are immersed in larger, more open-ended problems where they have the opportunity to work collaboratively, reason more and ultimately be stretched over all of the learning time – not just at the end of the lesson.

2. Develop confidence collaboratively

Having explored the NRICH materials myself, I was able to share the pros and cons of this approach with colleagues. I knew that many teachers find it daunting to teach a lesson in which children may use a variety of strategies, may not know how to start their learning, or may even head off in completely the “wrong” direction. Using NRICH gives staff more confidence as it provides guidance on starting points, questioning and a range of different approaches and solutions – helping to support and inspire both teachers and learners.

I found that a simple problem aimed at KS1 – Eggs in Baskets – could be easily accessed by all staff and was a great starting point. I shared this problem in a staff meeting where colleagues were able to experiment in a workshop-style setting.

Once we’d had a go at Eggs in Baskets ourselves, we explored how this low-threshold, high-ceiling activity could be easily differentiated and accessed by all children – from the lowest-attaining child in Early Years to the most able child in Year 6. Through this discussion, we came up with various ideas to develop the activity, including using apparatus to represent the objects, drawing representations, trial and improvement, and algebra. Teachers therefore felt confident in their own delivery, and equally confident that all learners would be able to access the activity at an appropriate level.

3. Step out of your comfort zone

In December 2018, our phase took part in a live NRICH webinar – logging in to tackle a problem posed by the NRICH team, alongside other classes around the country. We were all quite nervous about this as we really had no idea what we and the children and ourselves would face. However, we committed ourselves fully and both staff and children alike had an amazing time working as mathematicians. From this, we realised that to get the most out of our CPD, we needed to step out of our comfort zones and accept that it’s okay to not always be in control. We look forward to doing more of this in future.

As a result of the work we have done with NRICH, there has been a real buzz in maths lessons. In a recent Year 6 lesson – Olympic Turns – both the class and the teacher were incredibly excited by the learning. This led to increased exposure to mathematical language, collaboration, and the children even wanted to take their learning forward by using protractors to measure. Deeper learning was evident.

4. Share ideas and inspiration

Over the process, I have realised how beneficial it is to be able to share the activities and discuss this way of teaching with colleagues. This takes many forms, from informal chats in our classrooms to the more formal setting of staff meetings. Being part of Portswood Primary Academy Trust and a Teaching Schools Alliance has given me the opportunity to share ideas across schools and with maths leaders within our local authority.

Hearing about activities that other practitioners have tried with their classes will inspire you to try and develop these activities yourself. Knowing that another class of children have fully engaged with an activity often makes it more exciting to try it within your own classroom. In turn, sharing your excitement about an activity can have the same impact on other teachers and their teaching.

In order to support staff further, I have shared the curriculum mapping resources from the NRICH website with staff in my school, NQTs, maths leaders, headteachers and other practitioners leading on provision for more able learners through our NACE R&D Hub. These resources have enabled staff to search for mathematics objectives that link to NRICH activities relating to a particular area of maths.

5. Enjoy it!

When I started my journey as an NRICH Ambassador, I was already enthusiastic about NRICH resources. I have loved spreading my passion for problem-solving and sharing good practice within my school, cluster and beyond. If you are having fun, then your colleagues and the young people in your classrooms will also enjoy the experience of being mathematicians. Embrace it! It is essential that we inspire our children to have a love of maths by showing them how much we enjoy being mathematicians ourselves.

Mel Butt is a Year 6 class teacher with responsibility for More Able, Gifted and Talented at Tanners Brook Primary School, Southampton. She participated in the 2018-19 NACE/NRICH Ambassadors initiative. 

Expertise and research alongside practical experience

In line with the APLP model of teacher education, gaining access to expertise and resources from NACE will help our student teachers to embrace complexity; develop their understanding of the relationship between knowledge and experience; form meaningful relationships; and enable them to research, practise, model and reflect on their own classroom practice. With the development of a new curriculum in Wales and the emphasis on progression, there has been no better time to reflect on how we can further support our student teachers with the knowledge and skills to extend and challenge the learning and experiences of MAT pupils.  

During the 2018-2019 academic year, over 300 primary and secondary student teachers from both the Carmarthen and Swansea campuses have benefitted from the expertise of the NACE Associate for Wales, Rhiannon Jenkins. She has delivered sessions to raise awareness of the current provision for MAT, the NACE Challenge Framework and other support and resources available through NACE to student teachers at this early stage in their careers. Many of these students are currently on placement in some of our lead partnership schools who have already received the NACE Challenge Award. 

Developing a learning environment to challenge all learners

To date, we can see how being a member of NACE is already proving beneficial to our students, with some choosing MAT as a focus for their research project and others adapting their pedagogy with different groups of learners. Jennifer Evans adds, “For me, the insightful session on the work of NACE have developed my confidence to challenge my own practice for my upcoming placement and to rethink my style of teaching and how I can modify the learning environment to support all learners. This will hopefully ensure that my MAT learners will be challenged more frequently and develop skillsets to become independent learners without the boredom and low self-esteem that they may have previously experienced. NACE has developed my understanding to adopt a personalised teaching approach to support all my learners in regards to their academic, social and emotional needs.”

Our staff can also reap the benefits of NACE membership with access to a whole range of resources and expertise to further support their teaching. A welcome addition to those working with student teachers in Welsh medium schools is the Welsh language version of the Challenge Framework. Over the coming year, we look forward to further developing our partnership with NACE so that in the words of our current Cabinet Secretary for Education in Wales, Kirsty Williams, “By learning together, we can develop a better Wales.”

The Athrofa Professional Learning Partnership APLP is a partnership between UWTSD and partner schools across South and West Wales. It combines the expertise of the school sector and all its practical hands-on experience with the expertise of the higher education sector in teaching and mentoring undergraduate and postgraduate student teachers. 

Nanna Ryder is a senior lecturer within the Athrofa and leads on Additional Learning Needs provision for ITE courses. She is a former primary school teacher and has been a lecturer at UWTSD since 2008.

To find out more about NACE membership for your school, university or as a student teacher, view our membership information or get in touch. 

Share your expertise

Expanding our regional work

Member-led research and development

Getting ready for the year ahead

Free member meetups

Launching our R&D Hub…

We are the first of the hubs to run our launch meeting, which took place on 1 May 2018. As a result of our geographical position, all schools present were from across the Midlands. There were 16 colleagues present from 15 schools, and five more who expressed an interest in being involved but were unable to attend the first meeting. We had representatives present from across all phases of education. A number of colleagues sought more information on NACE’s Challenge Framework while others wanted more specific support with the following topics:

• Support for writing at KS1 and KS2
• Support for more able disadvantaged learners
• Support for more able coordinators in schools
• Developing a growth mindset

For the last two in this list, we were able to point colleagues towards the free webinars on these topics, available to all NACE members by logging in to the members’ site. I have already used the webinar on learning mindset for staff training at Haybridge.
 
NACE is developing a new three-day course to support those leading on more able provision which is now open for bookings, with an early-bird rate available until 31 August. This, and other NACE materials, will feed into the guidance available at future hub meetings.
 
An integral part of the R&D Hubs is the opportunity to share best practice. There is so much excellent work being developed across NACE schools, much of which never gets shared. None of us have all the answers, but between us all we can get close to the perfect formula. We are confident that improving our provision for our more able learners has improved our outcomes for all.
 
One of the privileges of running a hub is that we get the opportunity, first-hand, to see what is being developed in other schools.

Getting involved in action research

Since being accepted as one of NACE’s R&D Hub schools, I have had the opportunity to take part in an action research initiative run by NACE in partnership with Professor Bill Lucas at the University of Winchester. I have developed a number of ideas over the years as to what works in mathematics and I have found it to be an invigorating experience to test one of my many hunches!

The first session of this project, led by Professor Lucas, took us through the process of conducting action research effectively. As teachers, we all had so many ideas and it was difficult to hone our thoughts down to just one research question. I eventually settled on the following:

If I give extended thinking time without direct support, will students better answer multi-layered questions by understanding it is perfectly acceptable to make errors along the way?

I suspect that students who are prepared to take risks and not worry about making errors along the way progress at an accelerated rate when compared to their peers who cannot put pen to paper until they know exactly how to work through a problem. I am concerned that I step in too early to support a student, rather than emphasising the need to start a problem using the knowledge they have already obtained.
 
The free webinar on learning mindset, available for all NACE members, has been very useful in developing my own ideas for this piece of action research.
 
I am very much looking forward to our next support session in July, and reconvening next academic year to analyse our findings.

Joining the NRICH ambassador scheme

Through our NACE membership, our mathematics department has also had the opportunity to join the NRICH ambassador scheme. This initiative is run over three termly support sessions, with the aim of developing collaboration and resilience in mathematics alongside the development of curiosity and mathematical thinking. During these sessions we:

• Receive support with resources, approaches and ideas for our own mathematics delivery and gain confidence to share and signpost with other colleagues in school;
• Consider how we can use these approaches with our wider networks;
• Have the opportunity to test and review NRICH materials in development;
• Contribute to new ideas for NRICH and NACE.

Rob Lightfoot has worked as a teacher of mathematics for 25 years, teaching students across Key Stages 3, 4 and 5. He joined Haybridge High School and Sixth Form in January 2001 as Head of Mathematics. He has worked as part of the school’s senior leadership team for 16 years and has led on curriculum and teaching and learning. Rob has coordinated more able provision at Haybridge since 2009 and has also worked nationally as a lead practitioner with the Specialist Schools Trust on curriculum design.
 
To find out more about any of the initiatives mentioned in this blog post, or to join your nearest NACE R&D Hub, get in touch.

1. Step away from the classroom…

2. Share ideas with peers from across Wales

3. Take away practical action points for your school

4. Consider joining The Scholars Programme

• Brown, C. & Greany, T. (2017). ‘The Evidence-Informed School System in England: Where Should School Leaders Be Focusing Their Efforts?’, Leadership and Policy in Schools.
• Education Endowment Foundation (2017). Research Learning Communities Evaluation.
• DeLuca, C., Bolden, B., Chan, J. (2017) ‘Systemic professional learning through collaborative inquiry: Examining teachers' perspectives’, Teaching and Teacher Education, Volume 67
• Higgins, S., Cordingley, P., Greany, T., & Coe, R. (2015). ‘Developing Great Teaching’. Teacher Development Trust.
• Rose, J., Thomas, S., Zhang, L., Edwards, A., Augero, A., Roney, P. (2017). Research Learning Communities Evaluation. Education Endowment Foundation.
• Stoll, L., Greany, T., Coldwell, M., Higgins, S., Brown, C., Maxwell, B., Stiell, B., Willis, B. and Burns, H. (2018). Evidence-informed teaching: self-assessment tool for teachers. Chartered College of Teaching.
• Stoll, L. and Temperley, J. (2015). Narrowing the Gap with Spirals of Enquiry. Whole Education.
• Timperley, H.S., Wilson, A., Barrar, H. & Fung, I. (2007). Teacher Professional Learning and Development: Best Evidence Synthesis Iteration. New Zealand Ministry of Education.

A former English teacher, Cat's roles have since focused on supporting teacher development both online and through face-to-face activities, with a particular focus on development through collaboration and through engagement with research and evidence. She has worked as a teacher and advisor in the state and independent sector, as well as in corporate learning and development. Cat leads on the Chartered College of Teaching's work around teacher CPD, including the Chartered Teacher programme, and their research activities and publications, including termly peer reviewed journal, Impact. In addition, Cat is studying for her doctorate at the UCL Institute of Education, looking at school leadership development.

• Become an NRICH maths ambassador with three days of free bespoke professional development from the NRICH team;
• Explore ways to use and share resources from the NRICH website within your own school and with other schools who are at differing stages along the journey of developing confident and competent problem solvers.

Ambassadors need to be able to commit to:

• Participate in three days of training which will take place in London (see below);
• Share the learning in your school and with the wider teaching community in your area;
• Share outcomes and ideas with NRICH and the NACE member community.

The first training session will take place on 2 May, 10am - 3pm, at London Mathematical Society, De Morgan House, WC1B 4HS.

The remaining two training sessions will be held in the 2018-19 academic year; dates will be agreed with participants at the first session.

Register your interest:

To apply to be one of 15 schools involved in this project, send an email to membership@nace.co.uk with the subject line “NRICH ambassadors project”. Include an outline of your school’s current approach to supporting more able learners in mathematics, and why you feel you would make a good NRICH maths ambassador (max. 400 words). The deadline for applications is 21 March 2018. Successful schools will be notified by the end of March. Schools will be liable for their own travel and other expenses.

Ems Lord has been Director of NRICH since 2015, following a previous role leading one of the country's largest Mathematics Specialist Teacher Programmes. Ems has taught mathematics across the key stages, from early years to A-level Further Mathematics, and has worked in a variety of settings, including a hospital school. She’s supported schools as a leading mathematics teacher, local authority consultant and Chartered Mathematics Teacher, and has taught mathematics education on both BEd and PGCE teacher programmes. She is currently working on her PhD thesis, which explores approaches to improve support for those learning calculation skills, and is President-Elect of the Mathematical Association for 2019-2020.