Letter from Director of Education
Dear Heads and Chairs,
As an extended family of Church schools, we are highly successful - in our inclusivity, in the progress that pupils make and in the outcomes that they achieve. Thank you for all that you do! We value our partnership with you, and I'm delighted to let you know about the LDBS Core offer for 2024-25 and some opportunities and changes that are coming up this term and beyond.
LDBS Service costs
We are freezing the cost to schools of the Core Service, the Governors' Maintenance Scheme and the Grow HR service for the third year running. As you will know inflation has remained stubbornly high this year adding to the pressure on school budgets. The freezing of our Core Service costs amounts to another significant real-terms reduction in cost to schools at a challenging time. We are able to achieve this by increasing the level of the subsidy through careful management of our own finances and investments.
In 2023-24 the LDBS and Grow teams made 1,300 individual school visits and provided significant remote support on the phone and via Teams, to support you in providing the best possible Church school education. The property team has supported 170 projects with a total value of £6.5 million to keep schools safe, meet the most urgent needs and continue with the decarbonisation of the school estate.
I enclose details of our Core service offer for 2024-25. The breadth of the offer has developed over the last couple of years and your Adviser will be pleased to talk it through with you to ensure that you are accessing everything that could benefit to your school.
Advocating for Church schools
With school sustainability under the spotlight, political uncertainty and Local Authorities considering school closures in many boroughs, it has never been more important for us as a diocese to advocate for the place of Church schools at the very heart of the education system in London. It has been a privilege to make this case in forums from the London Councils 'Falling Rolls' conference to the Easter reception for faith leaders at 10 Downing Street.
I hope that your school is considering a submission to Ofsted's 'The Big Listen'. We are pleased to have secured a meeting for our secondary schools to give their feedback in person. We have also secured a face-to-face meeting as a diocese where we will continue to advocate for a fair and empathetic inspectorate that understands and respects context. If you would like us to raise issues on your behalf, please let your Adviser know.
Dates for your diary
After positive feedback from the inaugural briefing that we ran last term, we are going to hold a Summer Term briefing for Headteachers, Chairs of Governors and Clergy on Wednesday 08 May 16.00-17.00 on the overall theme of school sustainability. We will also be running a day conference on 11 October. The ‘Keep Your Head’ Conference is for Heads, Chairs and clergy on the theme of staff wellbeing. Look out for booking details in the bulletin.
LDBS website
We have received quite a lot of feedback that our website is hard to use so we are really pleased to be launching a beta version of our new website which will run in parallel with our old website until May half term, at which point the old website will be switched off. The RE syllabus, Policy Documents, Collective Worship Calendar and schools map pages are all heavily used and now have much-improved search functions. You can book training and apply to be a school governor through the website. To access and download documents you will need to register - just click the 'log in' button on the first time you visit the site. We hope you enjoy using it!
Important changes to NPQ funding
As I am sure you are aware, recent NPQs have been fully funded to support schools following the pandemic. You may not be aware though, that this is will no longer be the case.
From Autumn 2024 (Cohort 7) the DfE will only fund up to 10,000 places in total.
Funding is available up to the 10,000 places for the NPQH, NPQ for SENCOs and the NPQLPM (Primary Maths). LDBS is delighted to have been selected as a delivery partner for all these courses.
Schools serving the most disadvantaged communities are also eligible for fully funded places for other NPQs. Of these, LDBS will be delivering the NPQSL (Senior Leadership) and LT (Leading Teaching) and we can signpost you to CEFEL providers for other NPQS.
As of yet there is no certainty about Cohort 8. If you or your staff are considering an NPQ we strongly encourage you to apply for Cohort 7 whilst clear funding remains available. With limited numbers of fully funded places for the NPQH, SENCos and Maths NPQS, please let us know asap of your intentions via this CEFEL link The Church of England NPQ application form 2024-2025.
Helen Ridding will write to you separately if your school is on the DfE list of the most disadvantaged schools, so that you can consider whether you have staff who wish to take up the opportunity for funding on the NPQSL and LT, which are both extremely popular courses.
For schools not on the DfE list, we welcome your staff to join the SL and LT courses and can advise you of what the most cost-effective course of action might be.
Unlike many other providers, the CEFEL NPQs offer group coaching for ALL NPQs. Feedback from attendees is that these coaching sessions provide a valuable opportunity to share how the research can be put into practice. You may also find it useful to know that the courses are remote with limited face-to-face events (usually one a term) and that the NPQH and NPQSL have only one final open book assessment at the end, which we can support you with.
If you would like any further information, or any clarification please don’t hesitate to contact the NPQ team at NPQ@london.anglican.org. and they will happily answer any questions you may have.
Thank you for your partnership with us and your commitment to the flourishing of everyone within your school community. We look forward to working with you this term.
Yours faithfully,
Penny Roberts MBE
Diocesan Director of Education