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Also see:
Share - an initiative aimed at strengthening the quality of parents' involvement in their children's learning
Community schools, Scotland
Home-school links
Working with communities
Extended schools act as a focal point within their communities
for a range of services. They work with local providers, agencies
and, in many cases, other schools to provide access to what
the Government calls a 'core offer' of support. This consists
of:
- childcare 8am-6pm, all year round, not necessarily on
the school site
- parenting and family support
- a range of activities (study support), including sport
and music clubs
- swift and easy referral to specialist services such as
speech therapy and health drop-ins
- community use of facilities including adult and family
learning and ICT
By 2010, all schools are required to provide access to this
core offer, even if they do not offer all of the services
themselves. The target is that half of all primary schools
and a third of all secondary schools should do so by 2008.
Research indicates a lack of consensus as to what 'extended
school approaches' actually mean, while highlighting the time
it takes to develop successful partnerships with parents and
the community that underpin effective extended schools. Multi-agency
work increases accessibility of services to vulnerable children
and adults, but a clear focus and manageable goals are required.
The 2004 evaluation of the extended schools pathfinder project
suggests that the "territory" of extended schools
can be mapped in terms of which groups the school seeks to
benefit: children, families and/or communities, and what this
means in terms of learning, social issues and/or health issues.
Extended schools provide huge potential for accessing parental
and community resources to support the improvement of children's
literacy skills, their self-esteem and an enthusiasm for reading.
However, the pathfinder projects' evaluation found no evidence
that the activities offered by extended schools benefited
the most vulnerable children, or that such work was being
monitored.
Schools need to involve the adult and community learning
sector as well as libraries, including school libraries, in
finding ways to engage parents and other adults in informal
learning opportunities. These offer ways of engaging parents
in a dialogue about their child' s education and other parenting
concerns, including basic skills needs, as part of a developed
extended school approach.
One difficulty for schools was highlighted in a discussion
paper by the National Institute for Adult Continuing Education
(NIACE) Schools are for adults too. The potential for
schools to become a resource for learning for the whole community,
it stressed, is not reflected in official measures of school
attainment. We need to say what we expect of schools in terms
of their community role.
In 2005 the Big Lottery Fund announced £1.6 million to boost out-of-hours school activities in England under its Young People's Fund Extended Schools programme.
In July 2007, the DCSF announced that it would invest over £1 billion in the extended schools prgramme over the next three years to 2010. Families will be able to access services such as breakfast clubs, childcare, family learning and parental support, as well as having quick and easy access to specialist services for their child such as speech therapy. The £1.1 billion will fund capital projects and running costs to ensure that by 2010, all schools can offer extended services to children such as homework clubs after school; additional sport and music tuition; drama and ICT clubs; or catch up classes in English and maths. (Parliamentary questions)
Links:
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The Extra Skills project aims to promote social inclusion
and raise the achievement of young people at risk of becoming
disaffected by schooling by providing them with activities
to develop their skills. It originally worked with ten schools
over three years, and was run by the charity Education Extra
(now ContinYou), which supports out-of-school-hours learning,
and funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.
Case Study
One of the schools that the Extra Skills project worked with
was Clyde Valley High in North Lanarkshire. The project ran
a peer support programme for pupils in years S1 and S7, starting
with a summer literacy and drama school for the new S1 pupils,
working with S6 students. There were also lunchtime clubs,
paired reading sessions, mentoring and after-school art and
sport clubs, and the older pupils took part in an accredited
training programme.
According to the headteacher, the summer scheme boosted the
confidence of those moving from primary to secondary, and
the scheme as a whole raised the confidence, self esteem and
motivation of the pupils involved. It gave the senior pupils
a real sense of responsibility, improved both the school's
and the pupils' relationships with the parents and had such
an impact on the ethos of the school so much that it plans
to continue the activities even though the Extra Skills project
has come to an end.
Link and
resources:
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Department for Education and Skills, 2005
The findings of this report are based on the first year of
the Full Service Extended Schools (FSES) initiative, school
year 2003-4. The initiative aims to have at least one school
in every local authority providing a comprehensive range of
services on a single site, with all schools offering a core
set of extended activities by 2010. In the first year, 61
projects were funded; the findings below reflect 22 of the
projects.
Some key findings
- Local authorities and schools saw the initiative as an
opportunity to rethink the role of schools in relations
to pupils, families and communities.
- FSESs interpreted their brief in different ways: no two
are the same.
- There was considerable anecdotal evidence about the positive
outcomes of FSESs, including raised attainment, increased
pupil engagement with learning, and growing trust and support
between families and schools. However, robust evidence of
these outcomes does not yet exist.
- Multi-agency working was bringing benefits to vulnerable
children and families, although experiences of developing
such work were mixed.
- The development of FSESs was often one of a range of initiatives
forming a wider strategic approach at both school and local
authority level. Sometimes these initiatives were seen as
conflicting.
- Schools and local authorities were positive about the
potential of the Every Child Matters agenda and the Five
Year Strategy for Children and Learners for creating a strategic
framework within which their own work could unfold. However,
there were also concerns about the coherence of different
policies and the short-term nature of funding for FSESs.
- FSESs were able to articulate coherent 'theories of change',
setting out how their actions will bring about desired changes
for children, families and communities. Schools were optimistic
about their capacity to make a real difference to people
they serve.
Cummings, C., Dyson, A., Papps, I., Pearson, D., Raffo, C.
and Todd, L. (2005). Evaluation of the Full Service Extended
Schools Project: End of First Year Report. London: Department
for Education and Skills.
Download the full report or the research brief from: www.dfes.gov.uk
C. Cummings, A. Dyson and L. Todd, with the Education Policy
and Evaluation Unit, University of Brighton. University of Newcastle
upon Tyne/Department for Education and Skills, 2004
The Pathfinder Projects
This evaluation looks at the 25 Local Education Authorities
(LEAs) that undertook "Extended Schools Pathfinder Projects"
in 2002-2003. Under this programme, LEAs received a relatively
small amount of money, which they were able to use very flexibly
to support activities over an eight month period. In practice,
the funding was used variously for stand-alone activities,
to enhance initiatives that were already running, to support
ambitious multi-agency schemes or to build infrastructure
for future activities. Therefore it was not possible for this
evaluation to point to a general model of what an extended
school should look like. However, the report suggests that
the "territory" of extended schools can be mapped
in terms of which groups the school seeks to benefit: children,
families and/or communities, and whether it does this in terms
of learning, social issues and/or health issues. This simple
map can help schools decides how to focus their efforts.
What went on
All of the LEAs included out-of-school-hours clubs (some with
an arts or sports focus), childcare and some kind of health
promotion in their activities; all but one offered adult education
and all but five offered family learning, and in several cases
literacy activities were specified here. Many also included
specialist services such as behaviour support teams, and provided
for community use of the school facilities. Some involved
crime reduction and community cohesion initiatives, and all
took or planned to take a multi-agency approach.
Measuring impacts
The evaluation finds good evidence that particular activities
offered by extended schools have beneficial, limited scale
impacts (including improvements in attainment and behaviour,
and in parents' confidence to act as role models for their
children), but notes that many of the projects have greater
ambitions, aiming to tackle fundamental disadvantages faced
by communities. However, the limited time period over which
the projects ran, the short time lapse between the projects
and the evaluation, and the fact that the projects tend to
include multiple activities that may themselves have multiple
and interrelating outcomes, mean that it is difficult to draw
firm conclusions here. The report therefore urges a longer-term
evaluation of extended schools. It also provides a useful
"bank" of indicators against which progress can
be assessed, and puts forward a "theory of change"
approach to evaluation, which involves identifying the changes
that are expected to occur as a result of the actions taken,
and the eventual outcomes of those changes.
Conclusions
The evaluators note that local authorities have a key role
in helping extended schools develop, with the support of community
partners. However, they express concern that the activities
offered by extended schools tend to attract the "less
alienated" children and adults; there was limited evidence
of careful targeting of those who were harder to reach, and
no evidence that such work was being monitored. However, it
concludes that extended schools have the potential to become
part of wide-ranging strategic approaches to tackling deeply-ingrained
social problems, and that they "sit well within the proposals
of Every Child Matters" and the work of Children's Trusts,
the Neighbourhood Renewal Unit, Sure Start, the Children's
Fund, Connexions and Local Strategic Partnerships. As extended
school approaches become more widespread and ambitious, it
may be more productive to see extended activities less as
"projects" and more as central to the role of every
school (albeit to varying degrees), and a different funding
model may need to be found to reflect this new understanding.
Links:
To download the research brief or the report in full, visit
www.dfes.gov.uk/research
(this link goes straight to the relevant page)
More on Every
Child Matters
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Insight 7, Scottish Executive Education Department
"The pilot programme of New Community Schools will be concentrated
in disadvantaged areas where children face significant risk
of social exclusion and formidable barriers to learning in
their everyday environment." (Scottish Office, 1998; 5)
Background
The New Community Schools (NCS) policy is an integral part
of the Scottish Executive's wider Social Inclusion Strategy.
These schools were charged with expanding and integrating
the range of support and services available to young people
in disadvantaged areas, with the intention of raising attainment
and addressing social inclusion. As well as addressing the
attainment of young people in school, the strategy includes
approaches to early intervention and raising parental and
family expectations and participation in their children's
education.
In phase 1, introduced in April 2000, there were 37 pilot
NDC schools, with more projects added in phases two and three
in 2000 and 2001 respectively, and a national roll out across
all schools in Scotland in 2002. Funding for activity came
from the Scottish Office Excellence Fund to enable better
integration but the cost of service delivery came from existing
education, social work and health programmes.
The national evaluation of the 37 phase 1 schools used a
range of evidence including surveys among schools and six
case studies on NCS pilot schools reflecting different management
and organisational models, including a separate survey of
vulnerable groups of children in year 3. Analysis included
a particular focus on cohorts of pupils with low attainment.
Key themes
The key themes identified by NCS are pupil, community and
family engagement, leadership and management, and service
provision. Most NCS schools appointed a full-time integration
manager to facilitate the complex arrangements for multi-agency
working and the study showed the importance having such a
post, even if in some case studies there was a lack of clarity
in management arrangements and some difficulties in practice.
The majority of projects encountered difficulties in getting
started, eg getting funding and appointing staff. Key to success
in multi-agency working was the staff, management and senior
partners' commitment to the NCS concept.
Approaches with vulnerable young
people
Several aspects of NCS work concern getting more disaffected
groups of young people engaged in school. Findings show that
in Year 1, breakfast clubs featured strongly, along with extra-curricular
activities, for example, sports clubs, arts and crafts, cultural
trips and residential experiences. The case study evidence
focused on vulnerable young people and revealed that the pilot
programme had improved their attitudes to education and attendance.
The impact of NCS was most marked in the area of health education
and promotion. Another development was the provision of vocationally
based courses for young people at secondary stage. Personal
Learning Plans featured strongly in NCS although substantial
numbers of schools perceive difficulties or have made little
progress.
Pupil attainment
The surveys revealed mixed views about the perceived impact
on pupil attainment; about half of both primary and secondary
school respondents reported a moderate positive effect. Where
extra support was provided for vulnerable children and young
people, it helped to keep them in mainstream provision. This
support tended to be about improving behaviour or anger management.
Increased support for vulnerable children and families were
cited as important achievements by over half the projects.
Community and family engagement
The survey noted increased community and/or parent and family
engagement as areas of reported success in over half the pilot
projects. Parent education was noted as particularly successful
by some. The case study data showed that relatively few initiatives
were directed at engaging parents in a dialogue about their
children's education.
Community engagement strategies were slow to get off the
ground although by the end of three years, over half said
they were moderately or considerably involved in community
activities. A range of activities were reported including
the provision of adult learning opportunities, social and
sporting events. The case study data showed that the provision
of vocationally-based learning opportunities led to some vulnerable
young people and adults pursuing further education courses.
The most successful community engagement was the development
of greater links between schools and voluntary and community
organisations. A key difficulty was reported to be the short-term
nature of the phase 1 pilot NCS funding which did not facilitate
the development of high trust relationships necessary to build
up sustainable links between schools and communities. Effective
networking appeared to depend largely on the calibre and commitment
of the individual integration manager.
Pilot results
Analysis of school-based 5-14 attainment data from 1998/99
to 2000/01 showed that, while some schools showed above-average
levels of attainment increases, schools in the pilot did not
show overall greater improvement than others, although all
schools showed fairly steady improvement over three years.
There is little evidence, therefore, that the attainment gap
between pilot NCS schools and others narrowed over this period.
Most projects reported a greater emphasis on multi-agency
approaches as one of their main achievements, which was seen
to increase accessibility of services to vulnerable children
and families. The case studies showed there was greater inter-professional
understanding and greater links between groups.
In summary, the impact on the phase 1 pilot relied on a cocktail
of approaches, linking NCS with other initiatives in health
education and social work, drawing on a range of funding sources,
acting in many instances as a catalyst for change. The additional
activities undoubtedly had a positive impact on the experiences
of pupils, and vulnerable pupils in particular. If the positive
gains are to be built on, difficulties identified in the pilot
projects will need to be addressed. These include the need
for a clear focus and manageable goals, as well as the need
to address teaching and learning processes directly and to
encourage monitoring and evaluation if significant changes
on pupil outcomes are to be achieved.
Link:
To read this report in full visit www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/education/ins7-00.asp
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The Telegraph reported on a study by 4Children, a children’s charity, which suggested thousands of secondary pupils are left to wander the streets after school because there are so few child care places. The study revealed that 80% of mothers of older children had a job and that a third of teenagers regularly come home to an empty house. Half of parents in the survey said they did not know where their teenagers were, who they are with or what they are doing when they are not in school.
(Telegraph, 29 October 2007)
The TES reports on the challenge for those piloting the Government's
project on balancing child care and education. To read this
article in full visit www.tes.co.uk/search/story/?story_id=2300345
(TES, 20 October 2006)
Schools that open their doors outside of school hours have
a positive impact on the community but improved results are
not guaranteed, research by Newcastle and Manchester Universities
suggests. According to the report, extended services generally
help improve achievement and reduce exclusions. However, it
cautioned that it was too early to predict better exam results. According to the report, produced for the
DfES, there was evidence of results improving but they warned
that it was unclear whether these improvements were due to
some schools taking on more children for middle-class homes
with higher aspirations. The academics warned that in some of the case study schools
average achievements levels had declined during the initiative.
(bbc.co.uk, 19 September 2006)
The perception that increased out-of-school activities are
creating a stressed and 'overscheduled' youth has been attacked
in a US report. Giving Child and Youth Development Knowledge
Away, published by the Society for Research in Child Development,
found that doing extra-curricular activities generally improves
children's confidence and academic success. The report said:
"There is scant support for the over-scheduling hypothesis
and considerable support for the positive youth development
perspective."
Americans aged five to 18 spend on average five hours per
week taking part in extra-curricular activities, though about
40% do not participate in any activities at any one time.
The report concluded: "Of greater concern than the over-scheduling
of youth in organised activities is the fact that many youth
do no participate at all. The well-being of youth who do not
participate in organised activities is reliably less positive
compared with youth who do."
To view the report, visit www.srcd.org/press
(Nursery World, 31 August 2006)
Ofsted published Extended services
in schools and children's centres, following a survey
of a sample of extended schools and Sure Start Children's
Centres. The report indicates that there are major benefits
for children, young people and adults from extended services,
including enhanced self-confidence, improved relationships,
raised aspirations and better attitudes to learning. The report
includes some recommendations for the DfES, local authorities,
schools and Sure Start Centres on the effective delivery of
extended services.
You can download Extended services
in schools and children's centres at www.ofsted.gov.uk/publications/index.cfm?fuseaction=pubs.summary&id=4240
The extended schools agenda was been dealt an unexpected blow
after it emerged that more than a third of headteachers are
hostile to the plans. A poll by ICM found that 37% of heads
were opposed to the policy and only 11% were fully in favour
of the plans. A random sample of 805 headteachers and assistant
headteachers were interviewed for the poll in December 2005. Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association
of Head Teachers said, "Primary heads are being worked
off their feet and they are not looking forward to working
from 8am to 6pm."
(Children Now, 18 January 2006)
The danger of schools creating institutionalised childcare
by providing poor out-of-hours services for the children of
working parents was highlighted by a study at schools
in the West Midlands. Christopher Arnold, a senior education psychologist with Sandwell
Metropolitan Borough Council, said, "We found that when
the service was offered by school-based staff, the children
perceived them as an extension of class - registers were taken
and they were directed by adults, what to play and when to
play."
The dangers of institutional childcare were noted in 1951
by John Bowlby, a British psychoanalyst. His controversial
research linked children's feelings of rejection and developing
delinquency with disrupted mother-child relationships. Dr
Arnold says that the conclusion still applies that "raising
children in an environment with large numbers of children
with a very small number of adults, is not emotionally healthy".
Dr Arnold's pilot study, which is being extended to dozens
of schools in the West Midlands, questioned up to 80 children
at three types of clubs, and found where the services came
from outside school they were most like home, but those that
provided in-house services were most like school. While Dr Arnold supports their aim, he advised
the Government it must pay attention to what kind of clubs
are being set up, otherwise children are liable to spend less
time relaxing at home and are in danger of becoming institutionalised.
Ann Longfield, chief
executive of 4Children, a children's charity, said:" None of us would want to sit in a workplace two to three hours
longer a day and children shouldn't have to either."
(The Times, 6 January 2006)
In Lancashire's Pennine hills, eight Blackburn primary schools
are experimenting with working together to provide joined-up services. "Primary schools
already work together - the willingness to share was already
in place," say Keith McDonald and Peter Nye, school improvement
officers for the Blackburn with Darwen local authority. The
two former primary heads began to contact people in Blackburn's
network of children's services - social services, health,
early years, educational psychology - and that led to the
integrated networks for children's services or INCS.
Based on existing clusters of primary schools, INCS is an
attempt to create multi-agency teams that will operate as
close as possible to the children and families they serve.
"We knew that primary heads were under a lot of pressure
and that the average primary didn't have the capacity to deal
with everything being thrown at them," said Mr Nye. "A
cluster of primaries could share that burden and work together.
It starts with the school making its needs clear, and all
the agencies that support the school working to meet those
needs," said Mr McDonald. "It's an inverted pyramid."
The project began in September 2005, and the eight schools
in the INCS cluster intended to appoint a coordinator to
make partnership working easier. They also planned to buy a minibus
to allow teachers, parents and children to travel from site
to site. The vision is for a smorgasbord of local services. Blackburn
sees the children's agenda as so central to school improvement
that it has created its networks with primary-strategy funding
-money that is available to all schools and local authorities.
In the long term, the hope is that the highly pressured acute
services will see fewer "blue light" cases as family
problems are identified and dealt with at an earlier stage.
(TES, 18 November 2005)
School holidays could in effect come to an end for young children
by 2010 under plans for England's schools to offer year-round
out-of-hours activities. In an effort to end the culture of
'latchkey kids' returning to empty homes while their
parents work, Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary, made
an extra £680 million available to allow schools to
open from 8am to 6pm during term time and holidays. She said that by 2010, all parents of
primary age children should be able to access affordable childcare
and all three and four-year-olds "will receive 15 hours
of free integrated early learning and care for 38 weeks of
the year".
While those from the poorest backgrounds will get the extra
activities free of charge, middle-class families are expected
to be charged. Fees of between £2.50 and £3.50
for each extra hour have already been suggested by the Government.
But the DfES said it would be up to schools how much they
charge. Parents on low incomes will be able to claim the childcare
element of the Working Families Tax Credit to help pay for
the cost.
(The Times, Daily Mail, 14 June 2005)
Primary schools in rural Scotland are now more than just
schools, according to a report by charity Children in Scotland, who carried out a mapping exercise of Scotland's 14 rural
authorities, showing that all now have some form of additional
service within their schools. The most common was nursery
provision, reported as available on all primary premises.
Other services included crèches, parenting programmes,
breast-feeding support groups, after-school care, breakfast
clubs and a toy library. Professionals who visit schools include speech and language
staff, physiotherapists, dentists, doctors, police, early
years support workers, social workers and mental health service
workers.
(TESS, 10 June 2005)
Dual-use school and public libraries have been launched in
Bolton and Merton, London. In November 2004, extended children's
and young people's facilities were officially opened at Horwich
library, Bolton. The section has study, reading and relaxation
areas and is open to the local community. But specific times
have been allotted to two neighbouring schools for their use
each week. The initiative came about as a partnership between
Horwich library and the schools. As part of the partnership
agreement, longer opening hours have also been introduced
at the library. Merton, south London, did it the other way
round - a local school in Morden opened its library doors
to the public as part of the Government's Extended Schools
scheme. The school has asked parents and local residents what
extra services they wanted - and an extra library headed the
list.
(Libraries and Information Update, December 2004)
Researchers have suggested that government policies are constraining
attempts to achieve coherence between childcare and schools
in the UK, and that under-investment and treating care like
a 'commodity' has led to a fragmented and expensive service.
The BBC News story Underfunding hitting childcare at
http://news.bbc.co.uk
describes this report.
(NGfL Scotland 7 June 2004)
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A series of leaflets offering practical advice for schools can be downloaded from www.teachernet.gov.uk/wholeschool/extendedschools
Titles include Welcoming the Whole Community and Involving and Working With the Voluntary and Community Sectors
Adding Value: Adult learning and extended
services - a guide for managers and co-ordinators supporting
the development of extended services in schools. It is also
aimed at those in adult learning and family learning services
who wish to work with schools, and local authority officers
supporting extended schools. Download the guide from www.everychildmatters.gov.uk
Extended Schools - A Guide for Governors
I contains an overview of extended schools and the
strategic context for them, examples of the forms they can
take, and a checklist to help governors plan. It is available
to download from http://publications.teachernet.gov.uk
Realising the potential of school-based
networks - an online toolkit looking at how local authorities
can use school-based networks as a key strategic lever in
their change for children programmes. It is produced by I&DeA,
the Improvement and Development Agency for local government.
Visit www.idea-knowledge.gov.uk
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