skip to main |
skip to sidebar
EDUCATION
The government aim to fully implement extended schools by 2010 as part of the plan to reduce child poverty and champion the Every Child Matters agenda.
Do you think the advent of extended schools will affect the required services of supplementary schools and after school clubs?
12 comments:
The whole school system is flawed, extending the school days will only worsen the problems of Truency, Low achievement and bad behaviour. Supplementary schools play an important role in providing young people with an alternate/enjoyable method of learning, if the school day is extended there will be less time for young people to attend supplementary,Saturday Schools. Schools need to start preparing pupils for adult life with more individual learning programmes programmes in order to make the "education process appealing and worthwile for the majority".
I do not think there is a simple straightforward answer to this one. Supplementary Schools appeared as a result of the failure of the existing education system to meet the cultural and educational needs of children from BME communities. Often the expectations of children were too low and they did not achieve in line with their potential. There is clearly still a need for Supplementary Schools. Whilst that need remains and Children are failed by the School system and a curriculum which does not reflect their experience and wishes, Supplementary Schools will be required.
Many out of School clubs are based on School sites and organised by Community groups in partnership with Schools, that is unlikely to change.
Extended Schools have a lot of choice about what they offer in their area. Some work in clusters as is the case in Nottingham. This means that not all Schools will offer direct services but they are shared between Schools based on the needs of families in the area. Anyone who wishes to influence how services are organised, has a right to do so, via Governors or through Parents Councils which Schools now have to offer.
Extended Schools will shortly start to commission services required. Existing Supplementary Schools and out of School provision should organise to compete for this funding. This will mean understanding the area served by the Schools ie population, needs of local people and the expectation or specification of the Schools. Schools will expect quality assurance. Some supplementary Schools can prove that they have an excellent record of achievement, but not all monitor pupils with baseline and final assessments. Few have engaged the views of Parents and Children in how they are run. Sometimes organisation is patchy. This encourages a view (and a get out) from Schools which view them as inefficient and unreliable. If supplementary and out of school clubs join together to tender for funding I believe they can begin to iron out these problems and share good practice. Feedback from Parents and Pupils will update them on the current issues and concerns so that they can begin to shape services to deal with them. They are flexible enough to do this and it is a win, win situation. JL
What exactly would these extended school offer? There are several arguments to this saga:
1. Extended schools would allow for a safer environment for children after core school hours and more convenient for parents. This again would reduce the hassle for parents to find alternate after-school solutions for their children as it would be standard within extended schools. In this scenario it would affect the services of after school clubs as they would be redundant if extended school hours were introduced
2. Supplementary schools do offer a service however that would be greatly affected by the introduction of the extended school, Supplementary schools offer not only curriculum based learning but also cultural awareness. The question I’m then forced to ask is. Would extended schools teach Black Afro Caribbean history? would they help our Afro Caribbean children to learn about their culture and help to mould an identity? I think not, as I believe extended schools would have to standardise their services so as not to “offend” and in that instance our children do loose out on a vital area of their learning (self and identity)
This is reduced to a yes and no answer to the posed question and merely just the tip of the iceberg and I will be contributing more to this topic in later days.
Sincerely,
Concerned Parent
I don't think the advent of extended schools will affect supplementary schools and after schools clubs negatively, as the school leadership will not be responsilbe for the services that will be delivered during these extended periods, they are only responsilbe for ensuring that the school is open. That said, it does provide an opportunity for all parties to develop curriculums that are complimentary.
Brother Man
In my opinion i dont think that the extension of mainstream school hours will make any difference to our BME children and all the children in general,in contrary is going to make the situation worse,children will be bored,and will not have enough time to attend the supplementary school which succeed to improve their achievements,so if the gorvernment really care about children achievement and if the idea behind is not to destroy their future life, then they the government should stop that evil plan.
A.I.S
i do believe that the government's plan to fully implement extended school is a good idea as it will provide aboard cross section of activities and task to help students learn a wider variety of skills. In addition to that it will be good for parent who work different shifts as it would allow flexibility and freedom.
POSA
The priciples of extending school hours is not a good idea and this is based on the principle of continuinity. what will those extra hours do for them? will the schools offer a diverse curriculum or will it remain in stone? Supplementary schools on the other hand, in some areas, do work. however, a young person spending six hours per day concentrating on traditional education would not welcome further involvement. therfore,For supplementary schools to be succesfull and be respected as viable provision/option, it needs to offer alternative provision E.g Black awearness/black history,subject that capture the imagination of young people, not replecate the schools. This provition would then be truly supplementary to the traditional provition. If there is no reversal, then we should canvass for an addendum to be in place; that additional resources will be made availible for minority communities to continue/begin the much needed education of its young people into the principles and history of there respective communities/cultures.
if all else fails, we could pay that little bit extra to ensure our young people, can compete on an equal educational foundation. if the government persist with the proposal, we could do it ourselves. With help from those suppose baby father coupled with not buying those false nail,hair and paying £20/30 to see those so called dancehall star, we could suprise our self and get rid of our highly tuned begging mentality and place our children first!
I think if we can support children with the opportunity to do more educational work outside of regular school time is a good thing. Historically the black community has recognised the importance of this by having saturday schools. Black Churches have played an important role in this in the past recognising the failings of the normal school curriculum. I do hope that these extended schools will be fully supported and that the whole gamet of educational development is explored for mind, body and soul. Hope the government does not bail out on the spiritual and faith aspects of learning. I beleive the extended schools and supplementary schools can co-exist. In fact why doesn't the government throw some money at the supplementary schools and development - they could well be ahead in some cases.
This is a good idea but i feel that trying to egnage young people in education after the normal school day has finished maybe very difficult for those who do not have the choice, in my exeprince forcing young pepople to do smoething they dont want to do usally ends up creating problems. Schools should be consulting young people on what they would prefer to be doing after school. activities such as sports is a good idea, but again it needs to be the choice of the student not a forced PE lesson where they have to particpate in a sports they do not like. Cultral education should be taught during school hours and should be compulsory. with the exetnesion of school hours are we not exepcting to much from young people who would have already completed a full days education, young people should have the chance to have fun as soon as school is completed not forced to learn even more, if schools cant teach them what they need to do during the school hours how are they going to do it after school?? In terms of child care provisions this is a good thing, but will the school be providng meals and if so who is paying? the school or the parent. overall its a good idea but there are many issues that need to be .addressed
The implementation of the extended schools programme is on the face of it a good idea. However, BME children and children generally are struggling to be engaged in the current school system. So what is going to be different about this particular programme how will it resolve the issue of engaging children in education. If it is to be supported by the current teaching methods that statistics show is failing a large proportion of children, how will this programme be different. However there is a place in the scheme of things for a programme of this sort, but only if the outcome is to raise children’s aspirations in life.
I believe that the supplementary schools play a big part in keeping children and in particular BME children engaged in education. The government should provide additional funding to develop the good practice in these types of organisations further. The supplementary schools should work fully in partnership with schools rather that on an adhoc basis with little or no funding to continue the good work.
There should be an opportunity to see what is already happening in the supplementary schools and draw on experiences and good practice that already exist rather than attempt to offer something which is merely an experiment with our children’s lives. Its time the government stop chopping and changing the curriculum and listen to educational providers at grass root levels, they are the ones who are picking up the failures of the educational system
Should our supplementary schools ensure that their service delivery conforms to recognised quality marks or standards. For example recruiting or employing qualified teachers, conduct regular assessments, have proper systems and processes in place, implement proper planning, monitoring and evaluations, scheme of work, lesson plans etc. would you agree that by implementing quality, funders and even mainstream would be more willing to work with our supplementary schools and even provide long term support and sustainability?
The extended schools agenda gives greater autonomy to schools. These are the same schools that are failing our children, it would be fool-hardy to beleave that just because they had the power and resources to extend the school day that they would increase the use of existing supplementary schools.
As a supplementary school who's focus is on raising the achievement levels of African-Caribbean young people, we already find it difficult to work with schools around our primary agenda. They have no problem integrating services if its about giving free "cultural" input. (Drumming, dance, etc.). But if the primary agenda is raising achievement across core subjects and there may be a cost involved, the schools begin to draw back.
I have not seen any great change in this behaviour since the extended school agenda as started to be rolled out and do not foresee school behaving in any other significanly different ways to begin to include supplementary schools.
Depending on the level of funding schools will be afforded and the draw of the activities the choose to put on, supplementary schools could go out of business, not because extended schools are addressing the same needs as supplementary schools, rather schools will be able to give young people alternative activities that they would prefer to take up
DD
Post a Comment