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Open To The Community 
When was the last time you went inside a school? The chances are that it was either to vote in an election or — if you have school-age children — to attend a parents’ evening and listen to the teachers telling you that your treasured offspring ‘could do better’!
Durand Primary in Stockwell presents a picture of how schools could be at the heart of the community. The school, which has foundation status and is independent of local authority control, has raised the money to create a gated residential development of 68 studio, one- and two-bed flats within the school site which are let to staff at a subsidised rent. With swipe-card access and CCTV security, these modest furnished flats are found within a converted Victorian teaching block.
To invest in its site, Durand has set up a management company London Horizons and ploughs the profits into creating facilities for the local community, boosting the school’s out-of-hours use. Durand now owns and operates a licensed restaurant, a sports complex, a full-size swimming pool, Jacuzzi, massage rooms and a floodlit Astro Turf football pitch. As well as getting a good deal on the rent, teachers also get free membership to the gym on their doorstep.
The government is encouraging schools to open up their buildings to a range of other users. Through its extended-school initiative, schools are being encouraged to develop extended services out-of-school hours for children, their parents and members of the local community. Adult learning now takes place on many school sites, providing classes in, among other things, first aid, parenting, computing, English as a foreign language, CV writing and job application, cookery and much, much more.
An increasing number of schools are providing opportunities for pupils to learn beyond the school day. Football clubs, sports activities, drama, dance and keep fit are just a few of the activities on offer. They are run either by teachers on a voluntary basis or specialists.
Schools have many more facilities that can and should be open for members of the community. As with Durand Primary there are sports halls, gyms, drama studios and meeting rooms all waiting to be used out of hours.
Opening up the school
A new legal power is being introduced to make it easier for governors to provide wider services. The range of these provided will differ from one school to another and depend on local need, but might include:
Childcare
- Health and social services
- Adult and family learning
- Recreational facilities
- ICT access
- Legal or housing advice.
Provision of on-site support can help improve educational standards by addressing the needs of pupils and their families. In deprived areas, as with leafy suburbs, more intensive use of the school as a community resource helps children and adults achieve their full potential.
Schools developing in this way can benefit the local community by:
- Bringing together different community groups
- Making a key contribution to neighbourhood renewal in deprived areas
- Providing training and ICT facilities to help meet local employment needs and enable people to keep pace with changing technology
- Helping to make services more easily accessible in rural areas.
Teachers and school staff benefit from opening up schools for community use when healthcare and childcare facilities are sited on the school premises. School crèches or playgroups perform a valuable service to local families as well as teachers themselves.
Schools in the future will cater for, among others, pre-school children (for childcare, playgroup or crèche), and parents attending adult-learning courses. In some cases schools could offer meeting rooms to local employers to use as training facilities, thereby strengthening community and business links.
Arrangements for sharing the school's accommodation will vary greatly depending on factors such as location, school size and age range. Good transport links and appropriate accommodation will also be important.
Increased breadth and flexibility
A pupil's learning experience will in the future be less and less restricted to the traditional school timetable. A more flexible school day with more freedom for pupils to choose when they take breaks or eat lunch could allow pupils at secondary level to study in their free time, after school or at home. A recent study suggested that a longer school day could make this flexibility possible.
Pupils are also going beyond the school to other learning centres such as museums and galleries, or gaining real workplace experience. In the future there is likely to be greater movement between schools as each school is encouraged to develop a speciality.
All-age campuses are being considered as part of an attempt to make the learning sequence more seamless. Mixed-age teaching is possible, with older pupils helping younger ones, thus reducing problems associated with the transition from primary to middle and secondary schools.
Useful Web links
Community use of school premises
www.teachernet.gov.uk/management/atoz/e/extendedschools
Managing an extended school
www.teachernet.gov.uk/_doc/8509/Extended-schools%20Prospectus.pdf
Learning through Landscapes
www.ltl.org.uk/schools_and_settings/secondary/Schools-in-their-community.htm
Training and Development Agency for Schools
www.tda.gov.uk/remodelling/extendedschools/coreoffer/communityaccess.aspx
Financial Management Arrangements for Extended Schools
http://72.30.186.56/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&p=community+use+of+schools&rd=r2&fr=fp-tab-sayt1&u=www.seelb.org.uk/curriculum/Extended_Schools/DOCs/Extended_Schools-Financial_Guidance_Document.doc&w=community+uses+schools&d=eQ0Za-dmPqJ3&icp=1&.intl=uk |
