John Craig, who has carried out extensive research into the extended schools programme, was responding to the first detailed evaluation of it by researchers from the universities of Manchester and Newcastle.
The evaluation warned of 'strains' on school leadership teams who could be distracted from their 'core business' of promoting achievement.
Mr Craig said, 'Leading an extended school is a job of a qualitatively different kind to leading schools. Headteachers have not been prepared for the complexity of running an organisation that has to cross all these areas of children's services or of engaging such a range of professionals. They are making decisions that are increasingly locally significant. So the kind of services they decide to provide is actually a public issue. It's very easy for them to be drawn into local politics and they are not used to this public community role.'
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