Extended services in and around Nottinghamshire schools

Every Child Matters

The Government’s Every Child Matters objectives are to ensure that children:

• Are Healthy
• Stay Safe
• Enjoy and Achieve
• Make a Positive Contribution
• Achieve Economic Well – Being

Schools As A Gateway

With this in mind, the development of Extended Services in and around schools is helping to meet the needs of children, their families and the wider community. Schools are at the heart of their communities and so are ideally placed to provide access to a range of opportunities, activities and support.

Schools are not expected to provide or offer all services from their own sites but will work with agencies, service providers, community organisations and parents/carers to ensure that services are available locally.

What this means for Nottinghamshire

Nottinghamshire is building on a range of strong and effective partnerships between schools, statutory, voluntary and private organisations and the communities they serve together.  

We are developing extended services networks across the County, we are rolling out the extended services workshops to all schools and we are funding all schools, via the Local Authority, to work in clusters of schools with specific funds earmarked for co – ordination. The clusters are usually made up of a secondary school and the linked primary schools.

Meeting the Core Offer

By 2010 every primary and secondary school will be expected to offer access to the range of core services outlined in the following pages:

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Quality Childcare

Swift and Easy Access

Parenting Support

Study Support - A Varied Menu of Activities

Community Access

Involving parents, carers, children and young people

Quality

Quality Childcare

Childcare must:

• meet local demand
• be affordable (a locally based judgement)
• be guaranteed
• be provided by an OFSTED registered childminder or childcare provider
• meet proper standards regarding facilities, space and staffing ratios
• be available all year from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m.
• be available to children up to age 14.

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Swift and Easy Access

Schools and partner agencies must:

• Act on LA guidance
• Ensure that staff are aware of their responsibilities in relation to vulnerable or potentially vulnerable children
• Ensure that they have clear processes
• Make referrals that are assessment based
• Have named individuals who manage referrals
• Work together on referrals.

To help to achieve this in Nottinghamshire we are developing Joint Access Teams (JATs) across each school cluster, to discuss children, young people and families identified as requiring targeted support. JATs, schools and colleagues in services aligned to the JAT will undertake direct work with children, young people and families. Parents/carers and young people will always be included in a referral to a JAT and will be key to the development of a helpful support plan.

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Parenting Support

This should:

• include developing ways of to involve parents and carers with their child’s education and learning, particularly those parents and carers with little or no previous involvement with the school
• offer information sessions for parents and carers of pupils joining reception or when changing school
• provide family learning sessions to allow children to learn with their parents
• offer information about local and national sources of advice and support
• provide opportunities for parents and carers to meet as a group.

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Study Support – A Varied Menu of Activities

This should be a range of activities to interest and engage children and young people, enhancing their learning and skills development and encouraging their creativity, including:

• Homework clubs, subject and coursework/revision activities, reading, ICT etc
• Arts including music, dance, visual arts, DJ skills, filming and editing DVDs
• Sports and physical activities including cheerleading, canoeing and climbing
• Special interest clubs such as games, gardening, school radio and TV stations and cookery/healthy eating
• Play opportunities to supplement learning in school
• It may also include opportunities to meet and relax in a safe place, to have fun doing a positive activity voluntarily.

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Community Access

This should:

• provide access where possible to facilities such sports, arts and IT.
• offer adult learning where there is an unmet demand.

Involving parents, carers, children and young people in decision – making about Extended Services

Schools and partner agencies should actively seek the views of parents/carers and children/young people in the provision of extended services both in relation to users’ views of existing provision and in planning new provision. This could be done via discussions, meetings or interviews with parents/carers and children/young people or though questionnaires.

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Quality

The new inspection framework for schools issued through Ofsted in September 2007 guides its inspectors to make a judgement about how effective, efficient and inclusive is the provision of education, integrated care and extended services in meeting the needs of learners. This is reflected in the core criteria assessing “performance across all aspects of a school’s work, including the school’s contribution to Every Child Matters outcomes and the capacity to improve.”

In schools and clusters self evaluation frameworks and quality assurance processes promote the embedding of Study Support (QiSS) and Extended Services activities (QES) in the main school programme and in strategies for raising achievement, ensuring a strong connection with their overall approach to school improvement. The evidence produced to support judgements in QiSS and QES can be used to substantiate judgements in the Ofsted Self Evaluation Form (SEF).

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