School
Improvement
School
Improvement
Here is a summary of how LDBS supports schools in school improvement.
Additional services are also provided through our partner Grow Education Partners. There is more information below about our services, or view or download the brochure.
“LDBS supports you to transform children’s futures through an inspirational excellent education, inspiring education needs excellent leaders. That’s where we come in.”
Find out more here about school improvement services in
Leadership development
LDBS supports individual schools through:
Regular school development visits from a link school advisor
Extra visits for schools with additional, short term needs
2-4 half-day leadership visits, depending on school size
Attendance at Ofsted and HMI feedback following inspection
Up to 90 minutes phone support in relation to pupils at risk of exclusion
We enable collaboration through:
Regular strategic meetings with school leaders and chairs of governors to support schools
Induction, networking and development groups for school leaders
Deanery heads’ networks – find the next date
Deputy and Assistant Secondary Heads (with Southwark Diocese)
Heads of Sixth Form (with Southwark Diocese)
SENDCO network (with Southwark Diocese)
Residential Headteacher Conference
Delivery of NPQ Qualification for Church of England
LDBS also advocates for school leaders with wider stakeholders.
Grow Education Partners
Additional support for school improvement, curriculum development, subject leader, key stage and safeguarding reviews. A range of packages and bespoke arrangements available from Grow Education Partners.
NPQs
You can complete your NPQ with us! 99.5% of alumni say our NPQs have had a
positive impact in their role.
We offer NPQs in:
Headship (NPQ-H)
SEND Co-ordinator (NPQ-SENCo)
Senior leadership (NPQ-SL)
All of our NPQs include some group coaching and a mix of online and face to face teaching.
Useful links
Global Majority Leadership Development
LDBS advocates for global majority leadership support and development, monitors recruitment patterns and offers mentoring support for newly appointed leaders with a Global Majority Heritage*. We provide access to the national Church of England Leaders Like Us programme.
The Platform is the LDBS leadership development programme for aspiring leaders. The Platform is part of a strategy to attract, develop and retain Global Majority Heritage leaders, through support, coaching and mentoring.
Only once we are truly diverse can we represent the body of Christ in all its richness and grow healthily. To reach every Londoner, we need to be active in combatting racism and racial injustice and we need to see equality of opportunity, more leaders of diverse ethnicity and fairer selection processes.
Programme dates for The Platform 2025-26 are:
Thursday 27th November 2025 - 4:45pm-7pm at Diocesan House, 36 Causton Street SW1P 4AU
Thursday 12th March 2026 - 9:30am-12pm at Stepney All Saints Secondary School, Stepney Way E1 0RH
Thursday 11th June 2026 - 9:30am-12pm at Diocesan House, 36 Causton Street SW1P 4AU
Following the successful award of a financial grant, we are pleased to offer the full three-session programme to schools for just £150, regardless of the number of participants.
To sign up, please contact Stephen Kelly at stephen.kelly@london.anglican.org
*Global Majority Heritage (GMH) is a collective term referring to people who are Black, African, Asian, dual-heritage, indigenous to the Global South and/or racialised as ‘ethnic minorities’.
“I am passionate about supporting schools to recruit strong leaders from all backgrounds, and I want to make sure that up-and-coming school leaders don’t have to face the same barriers as I did.”
Useful links
Safeguarding
LDBS supports individual schools through:
All advisers are trained to give advice
Central safeguarding advice from Deputy Director of Education (School Improvement)
Comprehensive audit toolkit which covers all elements of safeguarding
Regular updates to changes in the statutory legislation
Resources to support schools
Curriculum support
LDBS supports individual schools through:
All advisers all have up-to-date knowledge of pedagogy and research.
All advisers have been successful headteachers and work closely with school to develop links between them to share best practice.
Termly strategic partnership meetings with schools enable LDBS to identify, signpost and broker additional support.
Through Grow Education Partners, schools can have subject specific reviews, wider curriculum visits to support them in meeting their school achievement priorities.
We offer expert consultant support for secondary schools in a range of curriculum aspects.
LDBS City & Diocese Fund - Grants for disadvantaged pupils
LDBS administers a small endowment fund for pupils experiencing disadvantage to help them take part in activities that go beyond the statutory curriculum. This may include residential trips and music/art activities. The fund is called the City & Diocese of London Voluntary School Fund.
We recognise the increased pressures on parents and carers to make ends meet, and the particular importance for pupils experiencing disadvantage to be able to access an enriched curriculum so we are delighted to let you know that we have been able to increase the size of the fund for the next financial year (April 2026-March 2027) to £30,000, so more pupils can benefit.
Applications can be submitted at any time. We review them each month.
Grants are only made in advance of activities: retrospective claims are not considered. The fund is generally over-subscribed, so we ask that schools pay careful attention to the grant criteria ‘City & Diocese of London Voluntary School Fund: Grant Making Policy’.
We are now accepting applications for the new financial year (April 2026). Please submit applications on our online form (click the link on the button below):
Useful links
City & Diocese of London Voluntary School Fund:
“This is a modest fund but over the last ten years it has supported around two thousand pupils in disadvantaged circumstances to access school trips and curriculum enrichment opportunities. Giving away money is the best part of my job!”