Extended schools video — written transcript
By 2010 extended services will be widely accessible to every child in every community. Schools will provide access to a core offer of:
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Community access to facilities
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Swift and easy referral to specialised services
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Parenting support
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A varied menu of activities including study support
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Year-round 8 until 6 childcare.
"With the breakfast club, it means the children come to school on time, it means that they have a healthy breakfast inside them, and that's going to benefit them for later life, because as young people, we're instilling in them all the time about healthy eating habits"
"It's not a sense of an enforced thing on a lot of children, it's really a club, it's a club where children want to come"
"One of the key things for making extended services work is having dedicated staff with that responsibility. If we try to establish what we've got in the school with a member of staff having a certain amount of responsibility it wouldn't have happened, because their prime focus as a member of staff is teaching, and the quality of teaching and learning."
"A full and varied menu of activities includes homework clubs, study support and after school clubs as well as including energetic pursuits such as drama and sport."
"It's improved lots of children's attendance, the magnet of being able to come to work with a sports coach before school or after school"
"The children are thriving, obviously, the more after school clubs we can offer them, it's this variety, enriching the curriculum, enriching the out of school clubs and them meeting different professionals who run these clubs; it's just widening their horizons and opportunities for them,"
And providing opportunities and support for parents as well as children is an important aspect of extended services.
"Family learning really is a child and an adult working together and both of them learning at the same time. And what we decided we needed to do with that programme was really emphasise the work that the adult was doing in helping their own child to develop skills"
"We've set up sessions for parents, let them know what we're doing in school about healthy eating."
"Methods are so different to what we were taught that it's very important for the parent just to have bit of confidence, because they can do it, but it's just doing it in the right way"
Local authorities are actively supporting this agenda. Helping schools to develop and enhance their extended services provision and meet their needs, and those of the wider community.
"What we do aim to do, if we can, is take people through from a fairly non-threatening start but actually get towards qualifications. And that could be your first qualification for First Aid."
"Put some youngsters into contact on a daily basis with adult learners, and they see for themselves that learning doesn't stop at 16, it's something which progresses throughout life, and that is a very, very powerful message"
Partnerships are vital in developing extended services. By developing links with other agencies, schools are able to streamline access to specialised services.
"For a young person to be able to access services easily without having to go out of their way, I think it makes life much easier for them. We've had rising exam results since we moved into the extended service thing, attendance is getting better."
"Learning that there are appropriate people who are able to put in place the support that students require at a particularly sharp moments in their lives, that's important because it allows staff to be able to facilitate them for accessing it, rather than having to provide it, and that has made a lot of difference because it allows teachers to be able to get back to focussing more on what happens within the classroom"
Careful consideration also needs to be given to how services are offered. This means looking at staffing issues, whether to involve existing staff, outside specialists, or by working together with other schools in clusters.
"You have to actually be doing that planning about 'how are we going to meet this?' and 'how are we going to do so in a way that actually links in with a vision that you have for the school as a whole"
As well as helping to raise standards in the classroom, extended services contribute to the five outcomes of Every Child Matters: providing children with the skills and experiences necessary to succeed in life beyond school and putting the building blocks in place for a secure and prosperous future.
"Children want to be here, they're happy, they feel they belong, they've got a pride in their school, their parents have a pride in the school. If we can create an ethos of the school really being the focal point of the whole community, it can only benefit children."
This page was last updated on the 2nd June 2006.
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