| NACE Curriculum Audit | NACE |
NACE Curriculum Audit©UPDATED JANUARY 2026
A comprehensive tool to support curriculum review at whole-school, subject or departmental level, with a focus on ensuring high-quality provision for more able learners and challenge for all.
The NACE Curriculum Audit provides schools with:
Considering whether schools' plans create sufficient depth, breadth and ambition to meet the needs of the most able learners, irrespective of the context, can provide an excellent starting point for whole-school curriculum review. "I've found the NACE Curriculum Audit extremely useful as a framework to help us think strategically about how we are ensuring our high-attaining and potentially high-attaining students are being catered for. We’ve used it across departments, to review how robust and ambitious our curriculum is for all learners. It’s not a tick-box exercise, but really meaningful and impactful."
What is the NACE Curriculum Audit?Categorised under the three areas of intent, implementation and impact, the audit document provides key curriculum statements, along with suggested evidence and questions to help leaders evaluate current performance against each statement on a 1-5 measure. There are two versions: one aligned to the curriculum in England (though suitable for schools in other countries), and one for schools in Wales. The latter is available in both English and Welsh medium. All versions also come with an exemplar document, providing concrete examples of how the audit can be used. How should it be used?The audit is flexible. It can be used by school leaders, curriculum leaders, more able leads, and subject/AoLE leads to support whole-school or subject/departmental curriculum review, with a focus on more able learners and challenge for all. Undertaking the audit will provide a picture of your school’s current position, help to identify priorities for curriculum design and development and more able action planning, as well as supporting the review of curriculum and more able policies. "We have used the NACE Curriculum Audit with the whole staff and had twilight sessions to reflect on it. We continue to reflect constantly and add new ideas. It has helped staff to focus exactly on what we are doing, not only for MAT but for all learners, and has helped us reflect and focus on preparation for the new curriculum and ways forward when matching progression steps. MAT learners have benefitted as all staff have a clear idea of identification and curriculum planning for all needs. Overall, it has provided a framework we have found to be most beneficial as a working document to meet the needs of all learners."
Introduction to the NACE Curriculum Audit Introduction to the NACE Curriculum Audit for Wales How to access the NACE Curriculum AuditNACE members: The NACE Curriculum Audit is available free of charge for NACE member schools (log-in required). Non-members: Schools which are not NACE members can purchase the Curriculum Audit for £275 +VAT by completing the form below or via our online store. Find out more about NACE membership (covering all staff in your school). Supporting consultancy: Members and non-members can purchase additional support through a half-day consultancy (£625 +VAT) to help facilitate the audit discussion, by completing the form below or via our online store. Terms of use: the NACE Curriculum Audit is issued to current NACE members and to purchasing schools for internal use only; external distribution is prohibited. To place an order for the NACE Curriculum Audit with or without accompanying half-day consultancy, complete the form below. Please note: members should only complete the form if purchasing accompanying half-day consultancy. To download the audit document free of charge, simply log in and click here. Supporting consultancyA half-day consultancy session can be purchased to support schools using the audit tool. This is designed to support school leaders in “walking through” the audit descriptors, providing clarification of the criteria and key questions where needed, facilitating discussion and providing support to identify strengths and key priority next steps. Typically, the meeting would be with an individual leader or a group of curriculum/subject/AoLE leaders. It is helpful, though not essential, if the audit document has been read by those attending in advance of the session, which can be delivered in-school or remotely. Schools may also find it useful to use the NACE Curriculum Audit in conjunction with the NACE Assessment Audit, which provides a quality framework for the review of assessment policy and practices within the context of the overall curriculum. |
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The current focus on curriculum provides an opportunity for schools to
test out their curriculum plans, asking whether these are ambitious enough and whether they deliver the intended impact for learners. Key to this is considering whether the most able learners are reaching their full potential through
the curriculum design and delivery. We know that if the needs of this group are being met, there will be a strong foundation for providing a high level of challenge for all learners.