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Secondary CPD courses

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Our offer

Having good literacy skills is key to academic success. We provide professional development for senior leaders, literacy leads, subject teachers, and librarians to develop a whole-school approach to literacy teaching in secondary schools.

Our training is aligned with evaluation and research from the Education Endowment Foundation and emphasises the practical application of research in the classroom.

We recognise the importance of supporting all practitioners to teach their students how to read, write and communicate effectively in their subject - what is known as disciplinary literacy. We provide a wide range of training to develop confidence, knowledge and understanding of how to teach disciplinary literacy.

We also offer CPD on reading for pleasure, which draws on our own research that when young people enjoy reading, they read more often, helping to build vital reading skills and bringing wider benefits for wellbeing, confidence and learning.

Why attend?

  • Build confidence and knowledge in how to teach literacy in your subject
  • Gain practical strategies to apply in your teaching
  • Interact live with a specialist trainer
  • Keep up to date with the latest literacy research
  • Receive high-quality resources

Feedback from a school, who has engaged with a wide-ranging programme of literacy CPD with us

Thank you for all the input in recent years. The training has always been of exceptional quality and pivotal to securing improvements with reading and writing. Our inspection report published this week evidenced literacy as a strengthening area. I thought that it would be nice to show you the tremendous impact of your work. I hope that you recognise the parts that the National Literacy Trust trainers influenced! Thank you for your support – you do an amazing job. We look forward to continuing to work with you in coming years.

Deputy Headteacher, Bishop Vaughan Catholic School

For more information on literacy leadership

Read our blogs on literacy leadership for more insight into our CPD and training.

Explore our literacy CPD training pathways

Each pathway below suggests a sequence of courses to build skills and understanding in a specific literacy area. Each individual course can be purchased either as a scheduled ticketed event or as a group booking on a date of your choice.

  • Leading literacy in secondary school
  • Introduction to disciplinary literacy
  • Disciplinary reading, reading for pleasure and phonics
  • Disciplinary literacy in subjects
  • Disciplinary oracy in the secondary curriculum
  • Disciplinary writing in the secondary curriculum
  • Supporting English teachers

Enquiries

For all ticketed events contact:

For all group or whole-school training enquiries contact:

For any other secondary training enquiries please contact:

Secondary national conference 7 July 2025

Join us to hear firsthand from our prestigious keynote speakers, Alice Deignan and Kareem Parkins Brown, who will share their expertise and insights as they spearhead this year's Secondary National Conference.

View the full programme
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Explore our literacy training pathways for 2025

Pathway one

Leading literacy in secondary schools

Pathway two

Introducing disciplinary literacy banner

Pathway three

Disciplinary reading, reading for pleasure and oracy

Pathway four

Developing disciplinary literacy within subject areas

These courses are ideal for practitioners, who are either new to, or developing an understanding of disciplinary literacy and how it can be taught in their subject. They are also suitable for literacy leads or line managers, who are supporting a subject area.

Sessions are live and interactive and grounded in literacy research and theory. They are designed to equip teachers with the knowledge, understanding and skills to teach the reading, writing and communication skills required for their subject and offer practical teaching strategies.

Pathway five

Disciplinary oracy in the secondary curriculum

Pathway six

Disciplinary writing in the secondary curriculum

Pathway seven

Supporting English teachers

We provide CPD that focuses on developing students’ reading, writing and oracy skills within English.

Our interactive writing CPD explores how to motivate secondary students to write imaginatively and enjoy self-expression. Aligned with current research, both courses highlight ways of teaching writing conventions in the context of creative writing. Participants will try out practical writing strategies that can be immediately deployed in KS3 and KS4 English lessons.