Issue - meetings

This report asks the Executive to consider the final report of the Education Scrutiny Committee on the extended schools service in York.

RESOLVED:             That recommendations 1-7 in the final report of the Education Scrutiny Committee be accepted and recommendation 8 be noted, as listed below:

Recommendation 1

The Director of Children’s Services will review the model of extended schools provision  to align with and reflect the core offer of May 2006.  This should be completed by September 2006.

Recommendation 2

The Director of Children’s Services will support schools by creating profiles of local community need.  This will assist in the development of services for the community.  This should be completed by September 2007.

Recommendation 3

The Governments intention is that every school in the country should be working as an extended school by 2010.  Council will support this ambitious target by providing appropriate training and support for school staff and governors.

Recommendation 4

The Council will support the shared foundation partnerships by encouraging the operation of a flexible lettings policy for accommodating extended school and community activities.

Recommendation 5

The Council supports the clustering of schools in order to develop services and business support which extends provision.

Recommendation 6

The Council will take up the opportunity to bid to be a Pathfinder authority in order to improve parenting support

Recommendation 7

The Council will take up the invitation to bid to be a Pathfinder authority in order to look at developing longer free sessions for 3 and 4 year olds in education, care and play.

Recommendation 8

The extended schools provision will be reviewed by Scrutiny in March 2008.

Members received a report which asked them to consider the final report of the Education Scrutiny Committee on the extended schools service in York.

The report presented two options for the Executive to consider, in accordance with its constitutional role:

·  Option A – to implement all of the recommendations proposed to it by the Education Scrutiny Committee, without further amendment;

·  Option B – to explain the reason for not implementing one or more of the recommendations.

The Chair of the Scrutiny Committee attended the meeting to present the report to the Executive.  He thanked Members of the Scrutiny Committee and the officers involved with the scrutiny topic for their work and this was reiterated by the Executive.

RESOLVED:             That recommendations 1-7 in the final report of the Education Scrutiny Committee be accepted and recommendation 8 be noted, as listed below:

Recommendation 1

The Director of Children’s Services will review the model of extended schools provision  to align with and reflect the core offer of May 2006.  This should be completed by September 2006.

REASON:      This review had now been completed by development workers and the results were included at Annex 4 of the scrutiny report.

Recommendation 2

The Director of Children’s Services will support schools by creating profiles of local community need.  This will assist in the development of services for the community.  This should be completed by September 2007.

REASON:      Work had been undertaken by the Management Information Service (MIS), which had informed schools and added to data supplied by the Health Service.  Schools/clusters would use this information to plan services.

Recommendation 3

The Government’s intention is that every school in the country should be working as an extended school by 2010.  Council will support this ambitious target by providing appropriate training and support for school staff and governors.

REASON:      This had now been brought into the forthcoming Governor’s Training Programme and had been included in briefings to staff.  This would continue.

Recommendation 4

The Council will support the shared foundation partnerships by encouraging the operation of a flexible lettings policy for accommodating extended school and community activities.

REASON:      Work was in progress on this recommendation, with schools being encouraged to recover additional costs as part of a reasonable rate to encourage community use.

Recommendation 5

The Council supports the clustering of schools in order to develop services and business support which extends provision.

REASON:      Development Team members were working with clusters of schools and the plans for the new Children’s Centres would also develop in this way.

Recommendation 6

The Council will take up the opportunity to bid to be a Pathfinder authority in order to improve parenting support

REASON:      The Directorate of Learning, Culture & Children’s Services had started work on this in parallel with the scrutiny.  A successful bid for Pathfinder status had been made.

Recommendation 7

The Council will take up the invitation to bid to be a Pathfinder authority in order to look at developing longer free sessions for 3 and 4 year olds in  ...  view the full minutes text for item 63