diff --git a/lightning_ir/base/module.py b/lightning_ir/base/module.py
index 77aec0e..017b2b8 100644
--- a/lightning_ir/base/module.py
+++ b/lightning_ir/base/module.py
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@
 from lightning import LightningModule
 from transformers import BatchEncoding
 
-from ..data import RankBatch, TrainBatch
+from ..data import RankBatch, SearchBatch, TrainBatch
 from ..loss.loss import InBatchLossFunction, LossFunction
 from .config import LightningIRConfig
 from .model import LightningIRModel, LightningIROutput
@@ -95,7 +95,7 @@ def score(self, queries: Sequence[str] | str, docs: Sequence[Sequence[str]] | Se
         with torch.no_grad():
             return self.forward(batch)
 
-    def forward(self, batch: TrainBatch | RankBatch) -> LightningIROutput:
+    def forward(self, batch: TrainBatch | RankBatch | SearchBatch) -> LightningIROutput:
         """Handles the forward pass of the model.
 
         :param batch: Batch of training or ranking data
@@ -164,7 +164,7 @@ def training_step(self, batch: TrainBatch, batch_idx: int) -> torch.Tensor:
         return total_loss
 
     def validation_step(
-        self, batch: TrainBatch | RankBatch, batch_idx: int, dataloader_idx: int = 0
+        self, batch: TrainBatch | RankBatch | SearchBatch, batch_idx: int, dataloader_idx: int = 0
     ) -> LightningIROutput:
         """Handles the validation step for the model.
 
diff --git a/lightning_ir/cross_encoder/module.py b/lightning_ir/cross_encoder/module.py
index e38cc2e..11686e2 100644
--- a/lightning_ir/cross_encoder/module.py
+++ b/lightning_ir/cross_encoder/module.py
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 import torch
 
 from ..base.module import LightningIRModule
-from ..data import RankBatch, TrainBatch
+from ..data import RankBatch, SearchBatch, TrainBatch
 from ..loss.loss import InBatchLossFunction, LossFunction
 from .config import CrossEncoderConfig
 from .model import CrossEncoderModel, CrossEncoderOutput
@@ -24,7 +24,9 @@ def __init__(
         self.config: CrossEncoderConfig
         self.tokenizer: CrossEncoderTokenizer
 
-    def forward(self, batch: RankBatch) -> CrossEncoderOutput:
+    def forward(self, batch: RankBatch | TrainBatch | SearchBatch) -> CrossEncoderOutput:
+        if isinstance(batch, SearchBatch):
+            raise NotImplementedError("Searching is not available for cross-encoders")
         queries = batch.queries
         docs = [d for docs in batch.docs for d in docs]
         num_docs = [len(docs) for docs in batch.docs]