Continuing Professional Teacher Development
Professional Teacher Development
Research-informed training that strengthens teaching practice, lifts learner outcomes — and can be recorded towards your SACE CPTD points.
Every teacher needs 150 points. Make them count.
Continuing Professional Teacher Development is mandatory for every SACE-registered educator in South Africa. Teachers must earn 150 professional development points over each three-year cycle, spread across three kinds of activity: teacher-initiated (Type 1), school-initiated (Type 2) and provider- or employer-initiated (Type 3).
CHASE training is designed to serve all three. A teacher who attends our training on their own initiative can record it themselves on the SACE CPTD-IS self-service portal. A school that books training for its staff builds it into the school’s own development programme. Either way, the professional development you are already doing with Amira, Studyclix and Key Links need not go unrecorded.
150
Points required
Over each three-year CPTD cycle, for every registered educator.
3
Activity types
Teacher-initiated, school-initiated and provider-initiated. You need all three.
Type 1
Self-reporting
Teachers log their own Type 1 activities on the SACE CPTD-IS portal.
Our SACE accreditation status
CHASE Education Solutions has applied to SACE for endorsement as a professional development provider. Once endorsed, our training will carry SACE-allocated CPTD points directly.
In the meantime, teachers can already record their participation in CHASE training on the SACE CPTD-IS self-service portal as a self-initiated activity. Point values and activity categories are set by SACE and published in its CPTD Management System documentation.
How we train
CHASE was founded on award-winning MBA Systems Thinking research into the causes of systemic education failure. Every course we run rests on the same three foundations.
Systems Thinking
Educational improvement needs a holistic view of the school ecosystem and the many variables acting on performance. Our training moves teachers beyond isolated interventions towards integrated solutions that fit the South African context.
Collective Teacher Efficacy
John Hattie’s Visible Learning research identifies collective teacher efficacy as one of the strongest influences on learner achievement. We build the shared staff belief that, together and with evidence, they can move outcomes in any context.
Response to Intervention
All CHASE training is anchored in the RTI framework. We equip educators to use technology and data to deliver tiered, targeted instruction — identifying learner needs early and intervening in time to matter.
Training happens in your school, with your teachers, using the tools they already have in front of them.
Our courses
These courses are delivered online or at the school by special arrangement. Each course is built around a practical tool teachers can use in the classroom.
AI Tools in the Classroom
Platform: Amira AI reading tutor
What AI-driven reading support actually looks like in a South African classroom — the opportunities, the practical realities of rollout, and what it means for the teacher-learner relationship at the heart of good teaching.
Teachers leave able to:
- Read the granular data Amira produces on each learner
- Identify specific reading difficulties and act early, within RTI
- Position technology as an enabler of teaching, not a replacement for it
Optimising Matric Exam Practice
Platform: Studyclix
How to get real value out of Studyclix, the NSC exam preparation platform that is free to teachers and supported by the DBE and Provincial Departments of Education.
Teachers leave able to:
- Target revision using the past-paper bank, memos and Exam Builder
- Read learner performance data to find gaps before the exam, not after
- Hand learners genuine ownership of their own exam preparation
Balanced Language Approach and the Science of Reading
Platforms: Key Links and Amira
The Balanced Language Approach and the Science of Reading are sometimes presented as opposing positions. This course explores how they can be brought into productive alignment, combining the strengths of both to support comprehensive, evidence-informed reading instruction.
Participants will examine how phonics, fluency and comprehension can work together as interconnected elements of a single reading system — not as separate programmes.
Teachers leave able to:
- Use Key Links levelled readers alongside Amira’s assessment data to support responsive instruction.
- Apply systematic phonics within a broader language and literacy approach.
- Develop fluency and comprehension in ways that complement one another.
- Accelerate reading proficiency in the Language of Learning and Teaching.
- Establish comprehension as a foundation for learning across the curriculum.
Coming soon
Two further courses are in development. Register your interest and we will let you know as soon as dates are open.
In development
Teaching Foundational Phonics Through a Speech-to-Sound-to-Print Approach
Resource: Key Links Fun Foundations Phonics Programme
This course introduces Joy Allcock’s innovative speech-to-sound-to-print approach in early literacy education. Participants explore how children can be guided from spoken language to sound awareness and, ultimately, to the written code through explicit, systematic and cumulative phonics instruction.
The course connects oral language, phonemic awareness and phonics, helping teachers establish the foundations children need to become confident readers and writers.
Teachers leave able to:
- Apply the speech-to-sound-to-print approach in early literacy classrooms.
- Develop children’s awareness of spoken language, sounds and phonemes.
- Introduce the alphabetic code explicitly, systematically and cumulatively.
- Use the Key Links Fun Foundations Phonics programme to plan and deliver structured lessons.
- Support learners in blending, segmenting, decoding and encoding.
- Identify and respond to early literacy difficulties through observation and assessment.
- Build strong foundations for reading, spelling and written language.
In development
Catch Up Your Code: Addressing Foundational Literacy Gaps in the Senior Phase
Resource: Catch Up Your Code Teacher Manual and AMIRA AI reading tutor
This course draws on Joy Allcock’s Catch Up Your Code approach to support older learners who have not yet secured the foundational knowledge and skills required for fluent reading and spelling.
Participants explore how explicit teaching of the alphabetic code can be adapted for the Senior Phase, helping learners reconnect speech sounds with written symbols and develop greater accuracy, confidence and independence when reading and writing.
Teachers leave able to:
- Identify gaps in learners’ knowledge of the alphabetic code.
- Use assessment information to plan targeted, systematic catch-up instruction.
- Apply the principles of Catch Up Your Code through structured lessons and cumulative practice.
- Teach sound–symbol relationships explicitly, including more complex code knowledge.
- Support learners with blending, segmenting, decoding and spelling.
- Use the Catch Up Your Code Teacher Manual to guide planning, teaching and consolidation.
- Build reading accuracy, fluency and confidence without lowering expectations for older learners.
- Connect code-based instruction to vocabulary, comprehension and the demands of the Senior Phase curriculum.
What educators say
“I would strongly recommend this training — both the AMIRA-specific instruction and the broader framing on AI and technology integration in classrooms — for any teacher, school, or Department of Education seeking practical, theoretically grounded guidance on implementing and evaluating educational technology.”
Prof Jonathan Jansen
Faculty of Education, Education Policy Studies
Stellenbosch University
Get started
Find out more, or request a date
Tell us a little about your school and which course interests you, and we will come back to you with available dates. Training is currently offered at no charge.