Policy & Practice: Briefing - Extended schools start to make amark

So where are we at with regard to extended schools? This report focuses on Full Service Extended Schools, an initiative launched in 2003 with the intention of eventually having at least one in every authority.

These schools are intended to provide services including access to health, adult and community learning, and study support and childcare from 8am to 6pm.

And how are they doing? It's hard to be definitive as this report only gives interim findings prior to a full evaluation in 2007. It's also complicated by the fact that there's not one definitive central model of how the full service offer should develop. It's early days and the outcomes are often quite long term. Researchers also state that it can be difficult to identify precisely the effect an extended school is having. Even when a positive outcome is identifiable it may just be that resources have been reconfigured from somewhere else rather than being an intrinsic benefit from delivering a service through a school.