The Government's ambition to have all schools providing access to a core offer of extended services by 2010 - half of all primary and a third of all secondary schools by 2008 - can hardly be faulted as half-hearted. But, while the Government exceeded its target of 2,500 schools with extended services by last September, there are serious question marks about levels of funding and the extent to which schools are embracing the programme.
Latest figures from the DfES indicate that more than 3,800 schools are providing the core offer of extended services and more than 11,500 are said to be progressing towards it.
The core offer includes:
* 8am to 6pm year-round childcare in primary schools;
* family and parenting support;
* a varied menu of activities including study support, sport and music clubs;
* swift and easy referral to specialist services such as speech and language therapists;
* community access to ICT to support adult and family learning.
But, as a DfES spokesman acknowledges, many schools did not have to be urged by Government to set up extended services, having done so successfully for many years (see box). A 2005 baseline survey showed that 87 per cent of primary schools and 95 per cent of secondary schools are providing some out-of-school activities or childcare.
So far the Government has provided start-up funding of 840m for 2003-08 - 160m has been handed over and a further 680m will be allocated between 2006 and 2008. The DfES has also made available a further 1.3bn for schools to support 'personalised learning' during and beyond the school day. Some of this money is supposed to be spent on extended services for children from disadvantaged areas.
Linking up
But with the Government progressively reducing the amount it is giving local authorities in capital and revenue for children's centres, many councils have decided to link the children's centres and extended schools programmes.
Funding is being brought together and many local authorities have formalised this relationship by creating one strategic body encompassing both initiatives. There are obvious benefits, particularly where councils are opting for locality-based delivery of services, often by putting children's centres on school sites. This avoids duplication of services and makes increasingly scarce financial resources go further.
Anne Longfield, chief executive of the charity 4Children, believes that the link is particularly beneficial for extended schools as they do not have the kind of infrastructure funding which is central to the children's centre programme.
Sheffield City Council is ideveloping a model to streamline governance arrangements where children's centres are sited on primary school sites that are providing extended services.
Previously the governance arrangements at Wybourn community primary school involved the local Sure Start partnership board, the nursery school governing body, the primary school, the extended schools management group and the Sure Start programme's accountable body - a community management organisation.
Under an initiative pursued as part of the Childcare Implementation Project, the myriad of governance arrangements are being replaced with one primary school governing body and a children's centre and extended schools sub-group. But the changes are not without pitfalls. The council warns, 'The extended schools initiative doesn't fully integrate with the children's centre initiative. You have to make it happen.'
Julia Powar, London programme manager for extended services at Continyou - the support service contracted by the Government to help schools implement the extended schools agenda - says, 'It makes sense for children's centres and extended schools funding to be aligned where possible and not driven independently.'
Continyou works in partnership with 4Children and the Training and Development Agency (formerly the National Remodelling Team) to help meet the Government target of all schools having the core extended offer by 2010.
She adds, 'It is important for local authorities to look carefully at where they are going to have children's centres and extended services: looking at localities and doing mapping is important for sustainability.'
For Catherine Kickham, head of early years at Portsmouth City Council who oversees the children's centre programme, establishing links with extended schools makes economic and social sense. She explains, 'At local level we are dealing with the same families and they don't want to see a distinction between the services their children get after five and before the age of five. So we are coming at this from the users' point of view.'
Her colleague Mark Scarborough, extended services manager at Portsmouth, collaborates with her and other senior staff in the community learning directorate. He suggests that children's centres are a form of extended service that goes beyond the needs simply of children aged nought to five, with the provision of parental and family support.
The city has five community improvement partnerships (CIPs) which set the priorities for using funding in its 74 schools, such as the 270,000 capital allocation this year for extended schools. The CIPs, which facilitate joint working between the children's centres and the extended schools, are used for the delivery of services and signposting to existing PVI nursery providers.
Core business
Julia Powar says that head teachers who resist extended services have 'misunderstood the agenda'. She says, 'They may regard it as not the core business of the school and that doing extended services means taking our eye off the ball of raising achievement.
'But extended services are all about improving the attainment of school pupils and it's important that this link is made and understood. Schools should not be providing lots of activity without reference to school improvement plans and what their core priorities are. If a school understands that extended services can improve achievement, then they become part of the core business of the school.'
Mark Scarborough believes that the reluctance of schools in some areas to get involved is because local authorities have told them they had to do the full core offer. He says: 'We didn't do that. We told schools how we could support them in delivering the core offer and that a significant amount could be done by signposting opportunities. We put a project manager in each of the community improvement partnerships and they have worked with the schools.'
In a survey last year, Ofsted found that 'services were most effective when there was a plan which considered standards, value for money, affordability and long-term sustainability of services.
'The most successful providers shaped the provision gradually to reflect their community's needs and wants in collaboration with other agencies.
They gave sufficient time to gather information on local requirements before setting up any provision. There was no single blueprint for success.'
But Ofsted added that 'short-term funding made it difficult for services to plan strategically. This influenced significantly which services were provided and the extent to which they could be sustained'.
PVI sector Clearly, the most contentious issue is the way in which some schools - and local authorities - have ignored existing PVI provision when considering setting up childcare in schools. Falling rolls leading to empty classrooms have prompted schools to set up their own childcare facilities even though there is provision nearby, with vacancies.
In Northumberland the county council has been trying to persuade head teachers at First schools to collaborate with existing local provision before taking this route. Head of early years Yvonne Fraser says that some progress has been made to ensure the inclusion of the PVI sector but there 'still remains a challenge'.
In a submission to the Childcare Implementation Project, the council indicated its frustration when it stated in one of its presentations, 'There are a range of relationships between head teachers of First schools and the children's centre agenda ranging from those who are attempting to set up provision in opposition to a children's centre to those who work very closely and supportively with their local centre.'
A recent survey in Northumberland by the Hempsall consultancy found that only 11 per cent of childminders and 26 per cent of group childcare providers feel represented in the local planning of extended schools.
Dave Dunkley, head of the Coleshill primary school in north Solihull, has had childcare there since 1990 and cautions against a 'disconnection'
between schools and the PVI sector. His school, which operates a full range of extended services, including daycare and before- and after-school clubs, works in partnership with four other primary schools.
Coleshill school is the hub of this cluster and the year-round childcare - called Chuckles and Chums - which it hosts, caters for 152 children from the schools which use the Coleshill minibus to ferry the children to the provision.
He believes that the PVI sector should, where possible, be involved and that he knows of head teachers who have mistakenly believed they could set up their own childcare provision as 'a money-making wheeze'.
He says, 'But you don't really make money out of childcare. Any surplus we may have made over the years has been ploughed back into the school.'
Sustainable approach Suffolk extended schools co-ordinator Paul Nicholls says that the county's strategy has been 'to work in partnership with the PVI sector and to use their knowledge and expertise to deliver childcare services that are needed in the communities surrounding the schools'.
He adds, 'A very small percentage of schools are running the childcare services themselves.' He says that Sure Start capital and revenue funding has been used to help pre-schools and nurseries 'to move on to school sites and deliver their core business and the extended schools childcare offer in new purpose-built facilities.
'We have worked closely with the county council property department to ensure that providers moving on to school sites are offered leases that give them some security of tenure.' He said there had also been close co-operation with the planning authorities 'to ensure that many of the pitfalls sometimes associated with planning applications are avoided'.
He adds, 'In some instances we have been able to combine the needs of a PVI provider with our targets for extended schools, children's centres and childcare targets and combine the joint funding available to deliver what is needed in the community.'
Whether a school has childcare provision can be a determining factor when parents decide where to send their child. Mark Scarborough says he knows of two Portsmouth schools that have recently opted to set up childcare because parents in their catchment areas were choosing other schools where childcare was up and running.
He believes that what he terms 'third party' organisations from the PVI sector have an increasing chance of being involved in extended services and charging for them because the goodwill of many teachers is waning. He says there is 'a significant number of disgruntled teachers' who may have been involved in running out-of-school clubs but are now fed up with the administrative burden this entails. He adds, 'To have a sustainable approach the more third party organisations we involve the better.'
HOW ARE SCHOOLS GETTING INVOLVED?
The Government commissioned BMRB Social Research last year to conduct a national survey to show how primary schools were engaging with the extended schools programme.
Its key findings were:
* 16 per cent - 2,875 - of schools were providing the full childcare offer; 48 per cent of those not doing it said they plan to in the next two years
* After-school provision was at 91 per cent. Before-school care increased from 40 per cent in 2005 to 53 per cent in 2006 and there was an increase in holiday care from 26 to 43 per cent
* 58 per cent of schools offered family learning courses and 68 per cent parenting classes
* 98 per cent of schools worked with at least one health professional
* 81 per cent of schools allowed the community to use their facilities
CASE STUDY: MARION RICHARDSON SCHOOL, EAST LONDON
The Marion Richardson primary school in Tower Hamlets - one of the most deprived boroughs in London - receives no money from the extended schools programme, but has been providing clubs before and after school for 10 years.
Reeling off a long list of clubs, which include dance, gymnastics, football, crafts, first aid and computers for under-fives, head teacher John Ridgley says, 'We started doing this before extended services were even thought of.'
The programme was designed to boost pupil attainment - 87 per cent have English as a second language as they are mainly from the Bangladeshi community. At Key Stage 2 only 21 per cent were reaching Level 4 ten years ago. 'Now 89 per cent do. I believe that if a child is confident in one activity, such as gymnastics or cricket, it will rub off on school work and raise achievement levels,' Mr Ridgley says.
He says that the school has no choice but to link up with the extended schools programme but he hopes that when clustered with other schools it will not lose its role as a provider of high-quality dancing and gymnastics.
Sports co-ordinator Bob Bellew, who manages four non-teaching staff in running the activities, says: 'The early years are the golden age of learning. Because of the lifestyles they lead, too many children are coming through school physically illiterate. We have shown that children have better attainment levels with good club activities before and after school.'