Extended Schools

In August 2007, Children’s Minister Beverley Hughes announced that 7,000 schools across England were now offering extended services.

The government’s aim is that all schools will be extended schools by 2010. But what exactly is an extended school?

An extended school offers services for children and families outside of its formal timetable and often out of school hours. One of the most important provisions an extended school can offer is wrap-around care — somewhere safe where children can be looked after at the beginning and at the end of the school day.

Wrap-around care, in the form of breakfast clubs, after-school homework clubs, holiday clubs and crèches, offers high-quality childcare, enabling carers and single parents to return to work.

Extended schools help families juggle work and home life by giving parents greater flexibility and providing parental support. Ms Hughes commented: “Above all, extended schools give children the chance to take part in fun activities — they can practice sports, learn a musical instrument, have drama classes or simply catch up on their homework. There is clear evidence already that activities being offered across the country have had a positive influence on pupils”.

Research has shown that attending extended schools can also boost standards and improve pupils’ educational attainment.

The increase in pupil attainment in extended schools was around double the rate of the national average between 2005 and 2006. At Key Stage 4, the number of pupils achieving 5 A*–C at GCSE increased by just over 5 percentage points compared to a 2.5 percentage point increase in the national average over the same period.

Core offer of extended services

All extended schools are expected to provide a core offer of services. These are:

• Childcare — provided on the school site or through local providers, with supervised transfer arrangements where appropriate, available 8am–6pm all year round
• A varied menu of activities on offer — such as homework clubs, study support, sports and arts clubs
• Parenting support — including information for parents at key transition points, parenting programmes and family learning
• Swift and easy referral to a wide range of services — such as speech therapy and child and adolescent mental-health services
• Wider community access to ICT, sports and arts facilities — including adult learning.

Services such as those listed above are an enormous support to working parents, and extended schools can even help with social or health inequalities and begin to tackle the root causes of urban decay.

Richard Thornhill, Executive Head of the Loughborough Kings Avenue Primary School Federation, a cluster of extended schools in the London Borough of Lambeth, explains: “Extended schools are about raising children’s educational aspirations and expectations by boosting their social capital and underpinning the role of the family”.

Loughborough Primary’s catchment is one of the most deprived in Europe, with broken families and a range of challenging issues from drug dependency to gun crime. Thornhill saw extended services as a way of developing the social capital of the children and their families — to provide the support infrastructure that would enable them to engage successfully with education.

The school began in a small way offering sports clubs and activities in the evenings after school and at weekends — things like football, basketball, gymnastics and cricket. The message quickly caught on that this was a lot better than wandering the streets.

Next, Thornhill turned his attention to building bridges with parents and winning their trust. He ran coffee mornings for parents two days a week and gave them a room in the school to meet. Then he started offering courses that parents would find useful, such as nutrition, first aid and quitting smoking. Only later did he start to explore more sensitive ground, helping parents with the bigger issues such as drug misuse and unemployment.

Thornhill describes an extended school as a hub where parents can contact social services, health and community care. He says: “I believe the government has got it dead right that school is the best place to lead community regeneration and break the cycle of deprivation. Schools need to realise that extended services is not just about providing childcare. You actually have to have a planned programme and clear expectations for children. The aim has to be to build social capital — giving children a stake in society and reinforcing the message that while you’re in school you need to work hard. This isn’t a soft option. It’s about kick starting self-help and community pride”.

Extended services and Building Schools for the Future

Schools are no longer just about what goes on in the classroom during school hours. The modern vision of extended schools sees schools as assets at the heart of the community, which everyone can use and benefit from.

Schools and communities can both gain from extending school activities and services into the community and using school facilities beyond the school day. Not only can this make more efficient use of school premises, but it can also improve levels of pupil achievement, increase opportunities for teachers and provide better access to education and other essential services.

Building Schools for the Future (BSF) provides an opportunity to be innovative in the ways schools work and to explore new ways in which they can involve the local community, adults, families and local business partners.

Health, pastoral and social care are among the additional services that can be brought together on school sites through joined-up funding, offering services tailored to a wide range of local needs and demands. The facilities that extended schools could offer include:

• Early years and childcare/crèches
• Adult learning
• Breakfast clubs and after-school clubs
• School-holiday clubs
• Doctor’s surgeries, clinics and social services offices
• Public libraries
• Community sports facilities
• Community halls for drama, shows, meetings, exhibitions etc.

Useful web sites

Advice on setting up extended services
www.teachernet.gov.uk/wholeschool/extendedschools

Every Child Matters
www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/ete/extendedschools

Training and Development Agency for Schools
www.tda.gov.uk/remodelling/extendedschools.aspx

Sure Start
www.surestart.gov.uk/surestartservices/childcare/extendedschools

Department for Children, Schools and Families
www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/studysupport/impact/extendedschools

The Parents Centre
www.parentscentre.gov.uk/familymatters/childcare/extendedschools