CYP(3)-CP15

Children and Young People Committee

Additional Evidence from Continyou Cymru

ContinYou is a UK wide charity concerned with developing and supporting the development of learning opportunities for everyone - children and young people, families and communities. ContinYou Cymru carries out the charity’s work in Wales.  As part of that work, we provide a support service to all 22 Local Education Authorities (LEAs) in Wales, on behalf of and funded by the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG), to help them to develop community focused schools and out of school hours learning (oshl). 

Community focused schools recognise that schools cannot, and should not, work alone in helping children and young people reach their potential. We know that children and young people learn more effectively when they are happy and healthy. A community focused schools approach considers how children and young people’s wider needs can be addressed through working with a range of partners and agencies, parents, families and the wider community.  And, through working in this way, bring benefits to their families and communities.  The WAG is encouraging all schools, over time, to develop a community focused schools approach.  

Since 2005, the Welsh Assembly Government has made funding available to all 22 LEAs to develop community focused schools approaches in their areas, and will continue to make this funding available until 2011. The fact that indicative funding for three years has been made available this time has been welcomed by LEAs/Local Authorities and is seen as helpful to their planning.  

Whereas the traditional views of community focused schools might have limited them to community use of school premises, the past three years’ experience has helped to show that the approach is about far more than just dual-use of school buildings.  In the most effective community focused schools, the approach is built into whole school planning and is not seen as an 'add on’ so that it can make a real difference to children and young people and, through working in this way, to their families and communities.  

The aim of community focused schools provision is to improve learning and well-being for children, young people, families and communities through:

Out of school hours learning (oshl):

providing out of school hours and other learning opportunities outside the formal curriculum for children and young people, adults, families and communities.

Example: a range of out of school learning opportunities and activities for children eg sports, homework, cookery, etc, inter-generational and life long learning

Family and community provision:

Additional services, opportunities or the provision of information.

Example: one stop shop information on local services, childcare provision, children’s information services, drop in health clinic, access to financial and debt advice.

Multi-agency working and provision:

Relevant partners are part of the planning, development and delivery of the Community Focused Schools provision, which contributes to the priorities of the Children and Young People’s Plan.

Example:  police, social services, health services on school campus, quick and easy access and referral of children and families to other services

Key messages:

• Well planned and implemented provision responds to identified needs.
• Community focused schools are more than just dual-use of school buildings.
• Activities/services do not have to take place on school sites.  
• It’s not about competing with existing provision
• The school can act as a signpost.

2. Evidence to the Inquiry

2.1 Potential role of community focused schools in addressing child poverty  

We believe that developing a community focused schools approach has real potential, as part of a wider, joined-up network of provision, to address child poverty through:  

• Supporting the school’s core business to enable pupils to learn more effectively and to raise standards (we know that there is a link between low educational achievement and child poverty - see point 2.2 below).  
• Meeting the wider needs of children and young people so that they are happy and healthy and ready to learn, including linking with the development of counselling services for all children and young people (which needs to link with each Local Authority’s Children and Young People’s Plan and addresses Rights To Action: 7 core Aims and The Ten Entitlements).
• Providing a vehicle for helping to achieve the specific outcomes of Core Aim 7 (child poverty) in the Children and Young People’s Plan.
• Developing skills: "A primary cause of child poverty is lack of opportunities among parents with low skills and low qualifications” (Experiences of poverty and educational disadvantage, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, September 2007).
• Providing a base for local access to services and activities e.g. accessible financial and debt advice/Credit Unions, Citizen’s Advice Bureau, food co-ops, health advice. Or at the very least to act as signposts to such advice.   
• Creating learning communities by providing opportunities and embedding an ethos of lifelong learning.  
• Engaging and involving parents in their children’s learning to raise pupils’ achievement (evidence shows that parental engagement in their children’s learning is "much more significant than any other factor open to educational influence”, Desforges and Abouchaar, 2003).
• Providing access to other learning opportunities for children, young people, adults and families:
• Out-of-school-hours-learning opportunities for children and young people , including sports and leisure, arts and cultural activities, homework clubs and access to community ICT facilities.
• Family and adult learning, embracing activities such as those above.  
• Support for transition from primary to secondary school and from home to school, and from school to FE/HE and work.  We know that transition between the primary and secondary phases is a time when pupils can be 'lost’ and become disengaged from education.       
• Developing new learning relationships with a range of providers, not just teachers.
• Providing out of school childcare facilities to enable parents to work, train and learn.

An example: Ysgol Y Foryd, Conwy in Kinmel Bay has the challenges of a transient population. CFS funding has been used to develop an ICT suite in order to raise standards effectively within the local community (pupils and their families). The ICT suite is used as part of a family learning programme to engage parents in their children’s learning, but it also provides access to ICT facilities so that children can complete their homework, as most homes do not have access.

2.1.1 The community focused schools grant from 2008-2011 includes a new element of funding for out of school childcare. We welcome this and especially the condition which allows LEAs and Local Authorities to use this year (2008-2009) to plan their out of school childcare.  Areas that are being highlighted from the childcare sufficiency audits include provision for 11 - 14 year olds and provision for those with special educational needs. The provision of additional out of school hours childcare and appropriate 'safe place’  type provision for 11 - 14 year olds will help address the challenges for working parents to address the home/life balance.

2.1.2 Estyn’s recent report, Provision of community-focused services and facilities by schools (May 2008), states "The co-ordination and management of authorities’ CFS strategies are carried out effectively by CFS co-ordinators where they have this as their main responsibility. Co-ordination is less effective where it is given as an additional responsibility to existing teams of local authority officers.  In many authorities, co-ordination of the CFS activities of schools, either working individually or in clusters, is ineffective or weak.  As a result, there is unhelpful duplication of activity, its impact is dissipated, or CFS activity is not well matched to the needs of the wider community” (paragraph 15, page 4).

From our work, we know that the majority of the 22 Local Authority community focused schools co-ordinators have a range of other responsibilities too. If a community focused schools approach is to be taken seriously and is to be seen as one credible and effective way of tackling and making a difference to child poverty, then this finding needs to be addressed at local and national levels.     

2.1.3 A growing number of schools are working in clusters to deliver community focused schools provision. This can be an efficient way to deliver community focused schools provision because, if well planned, it can avoid duplication of services and activities and be used to target services and areas.  It can also include the provision of some activities and services in other locations - not just schools, and the re-location of services in schools. Children, young people, families and communities may not necessarily access provision in their 'home’ school but through another school in that cluster or through another provider. However transport, in particular in rural areas, is a key issue which can act as a barrier to accessing services and activities and so to addressing child poverty.

1. Examples of other provision as part of community focused schools development includes:

Financial literacy: the new Curriculum Orders from September 2008 include the teaching of financial literacy. As this is a key element to addressing child poverty, we are currently looking at how we can support this through a community focused schools and out of school hours learning approach, and which would also include families.  

Volunteering: we believe that volunteering is key to building capacity within communities and to develop a range of skills which can support regeneration through offering informal and formal training opportunities and the potential for employment.  We are currently working on two projects, funded by WCVA Active Communities grants, which support volunteering:

• Volunteers for Active Communities: a three year project funded by the WCVA to provide accreditation for adults volunteering to provide out of school hours learning and community focused provision in their communities.
• Youth volunteering: we have just completed a feasibility study to test out ways of engaging young people in volunteering and leadership through linking with Community Focused Schools and Out of school hours learning opportunities.  

Emotional and personal support and development for children. We have been developing  Pyramid Clubs, which provide a means of supporting those children who have difficulty settling in school, making friends and accessing the school curriculum and the life of the school. These clubs are proving very successful in helping to address the needs of these children and also supporting parents and the transition to secondary school.

2.1.5 Community focused schools can provide a wide range of activities for all children, young people, parents, families and wider communities. However, this development can have the greatest impact in those areas where families and communities are not normally able to provide theses activities because of poverty of income, work, aspiration and access to existing provision.

2.2 School effectiveness and raising standards

2.2.1 We know that there is a link between low educational achievement and child poverty, and would echo Professor David Egan’s recent evidence to the Committee as well as the points he made in his research report for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in December 2007. The report argues that "schools alone cannot overcome the links between child poverty and low education achievement. It points to the need for a much greater emphasis on a range of out-of-school and community based services that can support these young people” (Combating Child Poverty in Wales: Are Effective Education Strategies In Place? December 2007).

2.2.2 The Assembly’s School Effectiveness Framework (2008) makes a similar point that "education outcomes do not just depend on schools” but are affected by a range of other issues including "poverty, family circumstances, housing and health” (p.3). We welcome the fact that the Framework acknowledges that community focused schools have a key role to play in contributing to school effectiveness and improvement. We wish to work closely in ensuring that community focused school development is recognised as playing a role within the SEF.

2.2.3 There is evidence that out of school hours learning can raise attainment (The impact of study support: a report of a longitudinal study into the impact of participation in out-of-school-hours learning on academic attainment, attitudes and school attendance of secondary schools students, MacBeath et al, 2001). It can improve children’s and young people’s confidence in their learning, improve their school attendance and their achievement. It can also engage those pupils in finding success in other areas outside formal learning in the classroom, which can influence their career paths and provide experience and evidence to help them to do this.    

However, we do know that since the Big Lottery (New Opportunities Fund) funding for out of school hours learning activities ended a few years ago there has been a significant reduction in the level of provision by LEAs and other organisations. There is no Assembly funding for the delivery of out of school hours learning but we know that only a handful of LEAs (Pembrokeshire, Cardiff, Rhondda Cynon Taff and Swansea) have committed to retaining dedicated officers, staff and structures so that comprehensive oshl provision can be delivered in their authority areas.  

We believe that every child and young person should experience a full range of quality out of school hours learning activities as an integral part of their learning and development, complementing learning in the classroom. We therefore support the WAG’s commitment in The Learning Country: Vision into Action (2006) to enrich non-formal learning and help raise standards by promoting out of school hours learning. Our Vision and Pledge 2010 campaign supports this by encouraging schools, Local Authorities, voluntary and community sector organisations and others delivering out of school hours learning activities to sign up to support this commitment.

2.3. Children and Young People’s Plans

2.3.1 All Local Authorities have to have a Children and Young People’s Plan in place from September 2008 showing what services they will provide for children and young people, and how these will meet the outcomes of each of the Seven Core Aims. We strongly believe that community focused schools and out of school hours learning are vehicles for contributing to achieving the outcomes of each core aim and not just Core Aim 2 (access to education, training and learning opportunities). Point 2.1 above shows how we believe a community focused schools approach can contribute to achieve Core Aim 7 (child poverty).  

We have been working with many LEAs across Wales to help embed this, and have produced a briefing paper (through working with the WLGA’s Partnership Support Unit) for LEAs and Local Authorities on the links between community focused schools, out of school hours learning and the Children and Young People’s Plans.  However, from meeting and discussions with LEA contact, it does appear that this is one of the core aims with which they are struggling to embed a role for community focused schools.  This core aim in particular requires a joined-up, multi-agency approach, beyond schools, education and the immediate Local Authority, if the outcomes are going to be achieved. This obviously requires a change of culture and ways of working.  We believe that a community focused schools approach does need to be embedded as a way of helping to achieve the outcomes of this core aim.   

2.4 Communities First

2.4.1 We responded to the consultation on Communities Next earlier this year and were pleased that community focused schools were included in the consultation document.  

We were also pleased that the consultation proposed that a "…greater emphasis will be placed on ensuring that funding and work are closely aligned with strategic plans in the area” to address child poverty. Each Local Authority has an officer who has the day-to-day responsibility for developing community focused schools, including developing a strategy. We would urge that these officers are included in any discussions on aligning plans and funding so that community focused schools and out of school hours learning can be embedded to tackle child poverty not only in Communities First areas, but is mainstreamed.  

Below are some examples of how schools in Communities First areas are delivering a community focused schools approach to help address child poverty in their areas with an emphasis on training, skills development and access to advice:

Trinant Primary School, Caerphilly

Has in the past worked with a local college to act as a satellite facility to run accredited training for parents and adults from the community to train as Classroom Assistants. It now provides a base for advisory sessions for parents and adults on benefits, tax credits and returning to training/work which are run by Working Links and Careers Wales.  Basic IT training is delivered from the school by Communities First Training and GCSE IT is delivered by Rhymney College/Ystrad Mynach College.

Sandfields Secondary School,

Neath Port Talbot has been working closely with its Communities First partnership to secure funding to establish a skills base - STRIDES - on the school’s site.  The facility provides a range of courses including business administration, hair and beauty, plumbing and painting and decorating.  A key part of its success is the headteacher’s vision that the school has a role in regenerating the community, and is working in partnership with the Communities First partnership to do this.

3 Recommendations

We would be delighted to be involved in any discussions based on this evidence and following the Committee’s report.  

We would ask the Committee to consider:

3.1 That if a community focused schools approach is to be taken seriously and is to be seen as one credible and effective way of tackling and making a difference to child poverty, Estyn’s finding on the effectiveness of Local Authority co-ordination (set out in point 1 above) needs to be addressed at local and national levels.

3.2 That the Welsh Assembly Government further supports the community focused schools approach - strategically and operationally, through a targeted but flexible approach as one way to address child poverty. This is not only about providing funding, but about the ethos and culture of working in a community focused way and by helping to ensure that different funding streams (programme bending), initiatives and policy areas are co-ordinated locally, regionally and nationally to maximize the impact and 'value added’.

3.3 That the Welsh Assembly Government works with Local Authorities to consider whether the current public and school transport infrastructure in their areas helps to address child poverty, especially in rural areas.  

3.4 That national funding is made available to all Local Authorities to deliver comprehensive out of school hours learning provision in their areas.

1. That national support is given to enable a community focused schools approach to help in the delivery of financial literacy to children, young people, their families and adults, linked to the new Curriculum Orders.
2. That there continues to be a national support service that works with local authorities, schools, the statutory and third sector to further develop community focused schools and to address issues of child poverty.

ContinYou Cymru

July 2008