Fareham East Ext Services

"Children learn what they live"

Dorothy Law Nolte 1972

By 2010, all children should have access to a variety of activities beyond the school day. Research has shown that well organised, safe and stimulating activities before and after school provide children and young people with a wider range of experiences and make a real difference to their chances at school. It gives them the opportunity to keep fit and healthy, acquire new skills, build their self-confidence, to build on whatever they have learnt at school that day, or simply to have fun and relax.

The idea of Extended Services arose out of the government's commitment to reduce child poverty and champion the Every Child Matters agenda. It aims to unlock the potential of every child and young person, provide support to ensure success in their adult lives and make our communities a safe and happy place for our children to grow up in.

The Government's aim is for every child, whatever their background or their circumstances, to have the support they need to:

The days of schools as hermetically sealed units are long gone. No longer are parents kept at a polite distance, facilities placed out of bounds and children left shivering at the school gates waiting for school to begin. In the past four years there has been a revolution in schools across England.

But the clock is ticking for extended services. By 2010 all primaries, secondary and special schools will be expected to be offering a full range of extended services.

However, what's on offer depends very much upon what local people want. For instance, primary schools are being asked to offer high quality childcare from 8am - 6pm, with a varied menu of activities to raise achievement and broaden interests. However, each school is not expected to offer all of these services on-site as this simply would not be economically viable. Therefore schools are being increasingly asked to work together to share their facilities and strengths. The government strongly supports the active involvement of children, young people, their families and carers to ensure that the range of local extended services fully meets their needs. The term 'Extended Services' clearly illustrates the importance of engaging with communities in planning and development of services.

A full range of extended services, often referred to as the Full Core Offer, includes the following: Extended Services Core Offer

	a varied menu of study support activities such as homework, sports and music clubs
	high quality childcare 8.00 am to 6.00 pm on the school site or through other providers
	parenting support and information, parenting programmes and family learning
	swift and easy referral to a wide range of specialist support services
	ICT, sports and arts facilities and adult learning for the wider community

Extended schools come in many shapes and sizes; it's not a case of one size fits all! Neither are schools being expected to work in isolation to provide all of these services, as they are increasingly being asked to work with existing providers in communities. In addition, it would not be feasible, or even financially sustainable to have all of these services duplicated at every school. Therefore many schools fulfil their extended school obligations simply by knowing enough about local provision to offer streamlined signposting to services without the need to bring them 'in-house'.

To see how this all fits please take a quick look at the presentations from the Training and Development Agency (tda), and the 2006 Hampshire Governor's briefing below:

It was decided that a potential key for unlocking the 'extended services puzzle-box' would be to engage a key person to research what is already available in our communities, coordinate the consultation with children, young people and their families on what they would like, and then attempt to draw together many different partners with a shared vision and plans to put this vision into place . In response to this challenge, Susie Higgs was appointed 1 November 2007 as your Extended Services Coordinator (ESCO) for the Cams & Portchester cluster group of schools (known as the CAP Partnership) to guide our schools through this extended services maze and provide a useful brokerage service between our schools and community partners. Establishing this web site was the first of Susie's challenges....!

Fareham East Cluster Schools (Portchester & Cams Hill)

A map of schools in borough

35 Portchester Community School

1 Castle Primary School

18 Red Barn Primary School

10 Northern Infant School

11 Northern Junior School

31 Cams Hill Secondary School

30 Wicor Primary School

40 Harrison Primary School

26 Uplands Primary School

(Many thanks to FBC for the school locator map)

We would be more than happy to receive your suggestions for this website, answer any questions you may have, get involved in setting up any activities for children and young people in our area (except activities that involves creepy-crawlies or very big trees) or simply arrange to speak to your group about extended services in East Fareham.

For a light-hearted diary of what Susie has been doing each month, whilst providing your online newsletter for our school community partners, then please take a visit to Susie's slightly 'unusual' ESCO Blog pages below: