Lessons from extended schools subsidy pilot

The Department for Children, Families and Schools (DCSF) has recently published an Interim report into its extended schools subsidy pilot programme. Extended schools aim to improve links to their communities with by opening their facilities to community use and by offering a range of services to children and young people, and to local residents. This can make an important contribution to the renewal of disadvantaged areas, and to the life chances of people living in those areas.

Half of all schools in England are providing extended services and by 2010 DCSF expect all schools to be involved to some extent. Extended schools are also invited to consider working in clusters with other schools and in collaboration with other providers, so that extended provision can be made available to children, families and local people without each school having to provide all of these services and activities individually. Most myplace centres will have extended schools in their catchment area and will be coordinating their services to young people, families and communities with them.

This research project aimed to identify the impact of providing subsidies for children from disadvantaged backgrounds to help them access extended schools activities. It may provide useful lessons to myplace projects considering ways of engaging disadvantaged groups and considering how to charge for activities.

The researchers used two different ways of defining the disadvantaged groups. The first group used a flexible definition based on local need to target the subsidies. The second used a centrally defined definition of disadvantage. Not surprisingly, the flexible approach was more effective in targeting needs. And nine out of ten schools using the defined model thought that they were missing out some key groups. However some of the schools using the flexible approach found it difficult to come up with eligibility criteria and this approach was also more time-consuming.

The research found that there was a stigma attached to uptake of the subsidy. Some schools had used different language to avoid this and rebranded it as an ‘entitlement' rather than a subsidy.

After the subsidy was introduced, the proportion of the target groups getting involved in extended schools activities increased from 35% to 62%. Around two thirds of schools had done each of the following as a result of the subsidy:

• Provided new activities for economically disadvantaged pupils
• Increased the number of activities offered to economically disadvantaged pupils
• Improved economically disadvantaged pupils' access to activities
• Improved the quality of its provision for economically disadvantaged pupils

You can find out more about the issues and challenges schools faced in implementing and managing the subsidy arrangements at DCSF's website.