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Children and Young People’s Executive
th
16 April 2010
4
Progress Report on Extended Schools
1. Purpose of report
1.1 The purpose of this report is to update the Executive about the progress made
in Leicestershire in developing extended schools provision and to indicate
ongoing challenges and potential issues post March 2011.
2. Policy Framework
2.1 The Education Act 2002 gave governing bodies of schools powers to extend
activities for the benefit of pupils, their families and the local community.
These activities are expected to complement the main purpose of the school:
to educate pupils and promote high standards of achievement.
2.2 The Every Child Matters: Change for Children programme requires system-
wide reform to ensure that services for children, young people and their
families work together to provide better support and extend opportunities.
2.3 The Children Act 2004 provides the legislative spine for developing more
effective and accessible services focused around the needs of children, young
people and families, identifying extended schools and children’s centres as a
route for provision.
2.4 The Childcare Act 2006 expects high quality wrap-around childcare to be
flexibly available for all parents and carers from 8am to 6pm all year round.
2.5 The Health White Paper: Our Care, Our Say: a New Direction for Community
Services identified the potential for services to be integrated as part of the
extended schools initiative.
2.6 The Education and Inspections Act 2006 is a major step towards the
Government's aim of ensuring that every child in every school in every
community gets the education they need to enable them to fulfill their
potential. It places a duty on governing bodies to promote well-being and
community cohesion as part of the extended schools remit.
3. Background
3.1 The government requirement is that all schools will be able to provide access
to the “core offer” of extended services in and around the school by
September 2010. The “core offer” is a range of activities linked to meeting
ECM objectives (access to childcare/a safe place to be; parental support,
additional out-of-school activities; swift and easy access to specialist support;
community access to school facilities). Schools are encouraged to work
collaboratively with other local schools, in a cluster, co-ordinating work with
other services and agencies.
Progress report extended schoolsV2/BJ – 25.3.10
3.2 Specific additional funding to schools through the Standards Fund and
through the Area-Based Grant has been allocated to facilitate this, as set out
in Appendix ‘A’. There is an increasing emphasis on provision for vulnerable
children and their families. From April 2010 a ‘disadvantage subsidy’ (locally
called the ‘opportunities fund’) will be available to support financially
disadvantaged children to participate in additional activities.
3.3 In 2007 the Training and Development Agency was appointed as a field force
agency to monitor progress on behalf of the DCSF through termly meetings.
The TDA has rated all aspects of Extended Services provision as “green” at
their monitoring visit of 9th March 2010.
4. Progress
4.1 By March 2010 almost all schools are working collaboratively within 29
clusters. Most clusters have appointed a co-ordinator to manage extended
services on a day-to-day basis under the strategic management of a steering
group of head teachers. 4 schools are working independently to provide
access to the core offer.
4.2 269 schools (94%) currently provide access to the full core offer. The
remaining schools will provide access to the full core offer by July 2010.
4.3 The provision made by each cluster represents local needs and priorities and
the level of resources available. Significant areas of strength include:
Parental support, available to all through family learning, courses on drugs
awareness etc, and more targeted provision, based on identified need
(counselling, behaviour support etc). Parent support advisers/Family
Outreach Workers in some clusters have enhanced mediation between the
school and the family and provided a first line of access to specialist
services;
Consultation with children and young people has informed the provision of
additional activities which are co-ordinated on a cluster basis linking
closely with other agencies and providers. This has widened the
knowledge of school staff about which local activities and services are
available to their pupils (e.g. childcare, sports activities etc);
Having established the full core offer, cluster co-ordinators are now
working with their schools to measure impact in a way that can support
school self-evaluation.
4.4 Support is provided to schools and their cluster co-ordinators through two
centrally employed Extended Schools Remodelling Advisors.
5. Ongoing challenges
5.1 There are a number of issues that have continued to challenge schools in
their delivery of extended schools services:
Transport for children to out-of-school activities continues to be difficult at
both primary and secondary level;
Progress report extended schoolsV2/BJ – 25.3.10
Varied knowledge amongst the school workforce about the purpose of
extended services limits the understanding of their potential in helping
schools to meet ECM outcomes;
Evaluation of activities that have been running only a relatively short time
and are intended to impact upon long-term outcomes presents difficulties.
5.2 These issues are being addressed in a number of ways, eg
- the opportunities fund can be used to help pay costs of transport
- later buses are being provided to enable children and young people to
participate in extended services after school
- some clusters have “advocates” (member of teaching or support staff who
tell other staff and parents about extended services) at each school. The
cluster coordinators are trying to develop the advocate role in all schools
6. Developments post March 2011
6.1 Funding for extended schools and the disadvantage subsidy is only secure
until March 2011. Clusters are beginning to consider how to maintain
effective extended services if dedicated funding is reduced or removed. This
reinforces the need for rigorous evaluation. A number of evaluation
processes, ranging from in-depth evaluation with a small number of children,
their schools and parents to100 schools taking part in more rigorous
evaluation through the ‘ECM Essentials’ programme, are being piloted. The
central Extended Schools team is actively considering ways to sustain good
practice on the assumption that there will be no funding to continue a central
support function post March 2011.
Brigid Joyce, Senior Service Manager, CYPS
0116 3056766 Brigid.Joyce@leics.gov.uk
Progress report extended schoolsV2/BJ – 25.3.10
Appendix A
Extended Schools Grant Allocations
£000’s
2008/09 2009/10 2010/11
Extended Schools (part of SS, EY & CG 546 0 0
Children’s Centre Block)
ES Sustainability Grant Standard Fund 871 1,589 2,239
ES Start-Up Grant Area Based Grant 1,192 1,811 745
ES Disadvantage Subsidy Standard Fund 0 318 1,721
(Opportunities Grant)
ES Capital Standard Fund 936 992 513
Total 2,999 4,710 5,218
ES Capital – 2008/9 and 2009/10 grant was passported to schools, 2010/11 grant is
part of Primary Capital Strategy
Progress report extended schoolsV2/BJ – 25.3.10
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