Schools fail to offer year-round services

Less than 1 per cent of secondary schools and only 2 per cent of
primary schools in England provide child care or activities all
year round, new research reveals.

Ministers have pledged that half of all primary schools and
one-third of all secondary schools will provide these services
between 8am and 6pm by 2008 and that all schools will do so by
2010.

The research, commissioned by the Department for Education and
Skills and carried out in May 2005, also finds that two-thirds of
primary and secondary schools offer parenting support
services.

A separate evaluation of the first year of full-service extended
schools, in 2003-4, also commissioned by the department, finds
there was much anecdotal evidence of positive outcomes from the
initiative but that experiences in attempting to develop
multi-agency working were mixed.

At the Labour Party conference last week, the government indicated
that the £680m investment in extended schools in 2006-8 would
be repeated when the current funding ran out.