Research carried out for the DfES shows that 2,875 schools - equivalent to 16 per cent of primary schools in England - are running as extended schools, up from just 2 per cent last year.
Researchers BMRB interviewed 2,174 primary heads to examine the development of extended services since 2005.
Their key findings include:
* The number of schools providing nursery education for three- and four-year-olds has risen from 35 per cent to 40 per cent
* Before-school care increased from 40 per cent to 53 per cent
* The number of schools offering integrated care (somewhere children are looked after outside the nursery education entitlement) is up from 22 per cent to 38 per cent
* Only 5 per cent offered year-round childcare to under-threes.
Forty-eight per cent of headteachers said they intend to set up extended services within the next two years. Even if only two-thirds do, the Government's target will be met, the report said. However, a substantial minority (32 per cent) have no plans to set up extended services within the next two to three years.
But Fiona Mortlock, head of childcare services at Schoolfriend etc., which runs 500 clubs in 75 local authority areas, was sceptical about the Government meeting its target. She said that some local authorities were unwilling to work in partnership with outside providers. 'They're trying to push the schools into running something themselves when the heads and governing bodies don't want to,' she said.
Schoolfriend etc. expects to open 1,000 more clubs in the next year, including 'clusters' round schools, and opens its first club on a secondary school site in Oxfordshire next month.
Meanwhile, some headteachers in the report expressed misgivings about such provision. Only 19 per cent agreed that childcare from 8am to 6pm is a good idea; 8 per cent said they were worried about the length of time young children spend on school premises; and 10 per cent questioned whether wraparound childcare should be schools' responsibility. One head who wanted to set up a breakfast club commented, 'In my heart, a child arriving at 8am and leaving at 6pm does trouble me.'
The report Extended services in primary schools is available at www.dfes.gov.uk/research.