BECOME AN LDST SCHOOL

Become a LDST School as a Church of England or a Maintained School 

In LDST, in line with the Church of England’s vision – “serving the common good”- we are committed to the education of all pupils, from all faiths and none. We are determined that all learners across LDST will thrive through an education that teaches wisdom, instils hope, nurtures community and embeds dignity and respect. 

Our Trust was established in September 2017 and has grown rapidly in that time.  All of our schools have taken an active role in shaping our Trust, ensuring it is focused on making a real difference to all learners.  

The right of all to have an excellent education is at the heart of everything we do and we have "... an uncompromising vision for, and a commitment to, ensuring that pupils across Liverpool Diocesan Schools Trust benefit from a high-quality education. This is irrespective of pupils' background or ability." Ofsted 2023 

As a distinctly Christian Trust, our Church of England schools put Jesus at the heart of all that they do. Working together, our schools collaborate, research and share widely to ensure our mission statement, “Learn, Love and Achieve, Together with Jesus”, is lived out across all of our schools. 

LDST has schools across 7 Local Authorities in the Northwest – Liverpool, Sefton, Knowsley, St Helens, Wigan, Warrington and Lancashire. We are determined to make a bigger difference to learners across our region and are keen to welcome non-faith schools into our family, to learn from them and to support them to learn, love and achieve, together. 

“Since joining LDST, we have been fully supported and challenged to further improve practice through excellent training, shared best practice and quality assurance.  Through the vision and ethos of LDST, all of this is achieved within a Christian community of schools working together, whilst allowing each school to have its own distinctiveness and thrive within its local context. We feel empowered to achieve our best.” 
Anya Richardson, Headteacher, Rainford CE Primary School 

Our Purpose  

Working together with our school communities, to provide an excellent education built on Christian values, that is committed to well-being and supporting each other, so that all children, learners and staff across our Trust, flourish. 

Benefits 

The benefits of joining LDST reflect our core values: 

• We value collaboration 

 Our established networks have provided exciting opportunities for schools to work together to create a fluid school improvement system. Our aim is to enable sustainable collaboration, with schools actively sharing best practice and supporting and challenging one another.  

• Connecting great teachers and leaders across our family of schools to share best practice and provide an excellent education. 

• Working together to minimise administrative burdens, maximise efficiencies and target the most resources possible into school improvement. 

• Developing peer partnerships with other MATS nationally and an annual Trust INSET Day with nationally renowned keynote speakers. 

• We value local 

We seek to empower local leadership of our schools and support Headteachers and Local Governors to serve their local communities. 

• Centralised policies and infrastructure that free up leaders to focus on teaching and learning. 

• Close partnerships with the Church of England Foundation for Educational Leadership – providing high quality CPD and leadership development. 

• Direct access to the whole suite of NPQs with high quality teaching and mentoring. 

• Empowering and developing local governance with agreed delegation and regular CPD to support and challenge local leadership. 

• We value inclusion 

We celebrate diversity, address inequality, overcome disadvantage and raise aspirations so that learners can achieve their highest academic potential.  

• A commitment to inclusion ensuring that all learners overcome barriers and thrive through an education that teaches wisdom, instils hope, nurtures community and embeds dignity and respect. 

• Providing opportunities for all our people to develop, pursue career aspirations and contribute significantly to wider improvements. 

• We value difference and celebrate the strengths in each of our schools 

We are so proud that each school in LDST is unique and are committed to providing school improvement support to schools so that they can be self-sustaining and flourishing. 

• Providing a bespoke offer which provides an excellent education, either through the individual school’s own ability to self-improve or through relevant support and intervention. 

Our School Improvement Model 

We are committed to supporting schools to be self-sustaining, inclusive learning communities of professionals that connect and collaborate to share best practice and innovative approaches. Within our School Improvement Strategy, we provide a graduated level of support and intervention to schools based on accurate categorisation of strengths, needs and priorities. 

Our schools tell us that our school improvement offer is why they joined and why they recommend LDST.  

“The collaboration, support and genuine care provided by fellow Headteachers and the Central Team is truly amazing and has without question helped to support all staff but also helped to drive forward standards in school. The extent of the school improvement provision we receive was demonstrated in our recent Ofsted inspection (January 2022) wherein we received an outstanding judgement.” 

Jennifer Young, Headteacher, Parish CE Primary School 

Our school improvement strategy supports: 

• leaders by encouraging collaboration at every level, so that strengths can be celebrated, and best practice shared.  

• schools to provide an inspirational curriculum and excellent teaching which enable our children to acquire a deep body of knowledge and a zest for life-long learning  

 
Through our strategy, we strive to know our schools well, so that we can be: 

“As Chair of Governors I unreservedly recommend being a member of a MAT, specifically LDST. Our school is so much stronger being within the group of schools and this leads seamlessly to us being able to improve the quality of education we can offer to every child and drive up standards.” 
“Being part of a MAT, means no one ever works in isolation. Whilst autonomy remains on many levels, the local governing body benefit from support of the highest possible quality from LDST.” 

Chris Roberts, Chair of Governors, St Michael’s CE High School  

Join Us 

We are really keen to welcome new schools to our Trust to ensure that together we make a difference across our region. If the prospect of being part of this innovative approach has inspired you, and you can see the benefit of schools working together to achieve collective aims, we would welcome hearing from you. 

If you would like to find out more about LDST or wish to arrange a meeting with members of our team, please contact Hollie Stott: hollie.stott@ldst.org.uk 

Liverpool Diocesan Schools Trust (LDST)