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The Working Classroom | CPD | NACE


The Working Classroom
How to effectively support more able
but under-resourced students

A new CPD programme for secondary schools and sixth form colleges beginning in October 2025, consisting of six online events throughout the year.

Run by Matt Bromley and Andy Griffith, authors of The Working Classroom: How to make school work for working class students. Participants will gain guidance and training on:

  • Understanding the impact of societal inequality on learners who come from under-resourced backgrounds.
  • How to identify and stretch more able learners from working class backgrounds.
  • A range of techniques that can be used to cognitively stretch more able learners.
  • How to effectively re-design curriculum models and create appropriate interventions and enhancements.
  • Case studies from schools in areas of social disadvantage where more able learners thrive.

It's not too late to join! Sign up before 12 November 2025 and receive a short catch-up call from one of the hosts before the rest of the course. Contact us at info@nace.co.uk for more information.


NACE members
Non-members
£750 for full programme
£1000 for full programme

  Register now


Matt BromelyMatt Bromley

Matt Bromley is CEO of bee and Chair of the Building Equity in Education Campaign. He is an education journalist, author, and advisor with 25 years’ experience in teaching and leadership. He writes for various education magazines including SecEd and Headteacher Update, and he is a columnist at The Yorkshire Post. He is the author of numerous best-selling books on education, and he co-hosts an award-winning podcast.


Andy GriffithAndy Griffith

Andy Griffith is the Director of Malit and the creator of high-impact training courses for leaders, teachers and students. Effective learning design is at the heart of Andy’s work and he has taken a career choice to particularly focus his work in areas of high social deprivation. He is also the co-author of four books: Engaging Learners, Teaching Backwards, The Learning Imperative and The Working Classroom.

Programme overview

SESSION ONE: Why do more able working-class students
underperform and what we do about it
16th October 2025
10:00 – 14:30;
online
  • Why the understanding of social inequality is crucial for equitable learning design
  • Understanding your school context
  • Analysing reasons for underperformance of more able but under-resourced students
  • “Equality, Equity and Extension” steps
  • Building a coalition of support within and outside of your school
  • How to increase the importance of equity within the school community

SESSION TWO: Curriculum, Matt Bromley
12th November 2025
15:45 – 17:00; online
  • It’s not about ability: moving from a label-led to a learner-led approach, converting the causes of disadvantage into classroom consequences – and overcoming them
  • Achieving equality by giving all students access to an ambitious curriculum and to extra-curricular activities that build cultural capital
  • Achieving equity through adaptative teaching and additional interventions – raising the level of challenge and teaching to the top

SESSION THREE: Motivation, Andy Griffith
9th December 2025
15:45 – 17:00; online
  • Understanding motivational deficits that can arise from poverty
  • Motivational “lessons” to explicitly teach
  • Getting student buy-in to becoming cleverer or more academic

SESSION FOUR: Pedagogy, Andy Griffith
28th January 2026
15:45 – 17:00; online
  • Growing the capacity to think deeply
  • Pre-assessment and advance organisers to build knowledge schema
  • Creating desirable difficulties through well-designed instruction and questioning

SESSION FIVE: Belonging, Matt Bromley
3rd March 2026
15:45 – 17:00; online
  • Equality, diversity and inclusion unpacked, auditing inclusion and removing barriers to belonging
  • Promoting inclusion through planning, teaching and assessment
  • Addressing the push and pull factors of school – ensuring all students are seen and heard, valued and respected
  • Promoting oracy, reading and literacy to ensure inclusion

SESSION SIX: Progress and next steps
22nd April 2026
10:00 – 14:30;
online
  • Reflect, share and discuss experiences and outcomes from the year; impact of the programme to date and planning for further developments.



Registered charity no: 1125907 Company no: 06604325