A commercial strategy — and a national roadshow — for the NAHT

The situation

The NAHT — the National Association of Head Teachers — wanted to grow its commercial side without ever losing sight of what it exists for: its members. That meant a proper commercial strategy, the right partners at the table, and new revenue that supported the association rather than pulling it off course.

Our education-sector background mattered here. We weren’t outsiders learning the world of school leadership from scratch — we already understood it.

What we did

A commercial strategy with sign-off

We built the commercial strategy and got it signed off by the then chief executive, Russell Hobby — the foundation everything else sat on. No point building partnerships on a plan the top of the organisation hasn’t bought into.

Life After Levels: a national roadshow

When the government scrapped National Curriculum levels, head teachers were left to rebuild assessment almost from scratch. We ran Life After Levels — a national roadshow helping school leaders make sense of the new assessment paradigms — in partnership with the learning platform Frog and Mick Waters, formerly of the QCA. Well over 500 head teachers and school leaders came through it, and the feedback was excellent.

An assessment platform for the new rules

We then partnered with Frog to build an assessment platform designed around the post-levels world — giving teachers a practical way to navigate the change, not just a conference about it.

Partnerships, programmes and revenue

We engaged the commercial sector, brought new partners on board, and helped develop the NAHT Aspire and NAHT Assure programmes — turning relationships into structured offers members could actually use. We set up the agreements built to grow revenue, and supported the transition to a new magazine format so the member experience moved forward too.

The result

A clear commercial strategy signed off at the top, two new programmes carrying the NAHT name, a national roadshow that reached well over 500 school leaders, and an assessment platform built for the world those leaders had been dropped into.

Working with a national membership body for school leaders is a long way from a village pub. The thread that connects them is the same: understand what an organisation is really for, then build everything else around it.