Why do we exist?


There are a range of skills shortages across the screen industries in the UK. Industry leaders tell us that there are not enough sufficiently skilled young people entering the industry, and industry skills audits tell us that existing courses at Level 3 and above aren’t preparing learners for careers in the industry. Furthermore, the industry workforce does not reflect the diversity of the UK across a range of measures including ethnicity, gender, and income background. For example, in production, only 3% of employees are from an underrepresented ethnic group, compared to 12.5% nationally.

The London Screen Academy exists to plug this gap in provision by providing high-quality vocational routes that lead straight to paid employment. Our Level 3 and Level 4 courses focus on producing learners who are ‘set ready’, and they take less time and money than other routes into the industry, which is a key consideration for disadvantaged learners. We work closely with industry to ensure our curriculum achieves these goals. Our curriculum is also enhanced by additional qualifications - Maths, English, and the EPQ, in order to provide students with additional skills, to further extend their cultural capital, and to retain a broad base to their education.

Our Vision

At LSA, our vision is to create stories that change the world. To do that, we are building a new generation of storytellers.

Our students are a diverse group of young and inspiring creatives, and it’s our job to equip them with the knowledge, skills and behaviours they need to go out and change the world.

Our Values

Our values are always evolving and are more than just a series of words that we put on a wall. Our values guide how we operate, interact and ultimately design, develop and deliver our work. We have three values which can be seen below and each value has a set of guiding statements to help us understand how to incorporate these on a day-to-day basis, which in turn helps us hold ourselves accountable to the values. Click here to see these statements.

  • We are CRAFTSPEOPLE who love what we do

  • We EMBRACE CHALLENGE with humour and grit

  • We are CHANGEMAKERS who believe in the power of storytelling


How do we seek to achieve this?

Our first step is to work with industry to identify the knowledge, skills and behaviours that our students need. For example, our technical students need to be able to operate a radio mic, our post-production students need to be able edit a montage, and all of our students need to be able to promote their work with pride and humility. 

We are designing the curriculum from the ground up, with the aim of reimagining creative education. So once we have identified the knowledge, skills and behaviours needed in the screen industries, we invite industry professionals at the top of their game to come and join our teachers to generate ideas for exciting, collaborative and industry-relevant projects. Click here to see what those sessions look like. 

Once we have the best ideas for student projects, we test the ideas with students, teachers, and other key players in the screen industries, refining them into a range of project briefs. Click here to see what our project briefs for students look like. 

The final stage is for us to deliver the projects in the classroom, computer suite, or studio. Students might be designing a costume for characters in a French village during World War I, creating a title sequence for a Netflix series, or shooting a scene from a soap opera, but whatever outcome they are producing, the most important thing is that they will be developing world class knowledge, skills and behaviours as they progress through the school. Check out our instagram page to see some great work from LSA students. 

Alongside the Film & TV course, all of our students study an additional qualification in English, Maths or the Extended Project Qualification. For Maths students, this is a chance to flex their problem-solving skills, for English students a chance to further develop their understanding of people and their stories, and for EPQ students, it’s an opportunity to cement the skills they need to realise their creative visions. Click here to learn more about our additional qualifications.

Throughout their journey, our students are supported in their personal and professional development. Weekly film screenings are accompanied by masterclasses with stars from in front of, and behind, the camera. We also have dedicated programmes for developing the professional behaviours of our students. For example, students have regular access to a team of 150 industry mentors, they receive weekly careers guidance, plus a range of other interventions including drama coaching and virtual reality simulations of the workplace. You can also read more about our Industry offer here

The ultimate goal is for our students to go out and transform the screen industries.