Agenda and minutes

Please introduce yourself and outline your role and responsibilities.

I am the Head of Extended Services, and Parenting Commissioner. The key areas of my work as Head of ES are:-

• the development of ES in and around schools, in partnership with CFE and other KCC Directorates, and external partners;
• working with schools and partners to develop schools  at the heart of their community, and the Government’s agenda of developing core offer services to ensure access to a full range of services available by September 2010, including childcare services for children aged 0 – 14 (16 if disabled), information and support for parents, development of study support and out of hours learning and access to school facilities – particularly for Sport, ICT and Arts (where school facilities are suitable and there is an evidenced community need) etc. In some of these areas, my agenda overlaps with, and supports those of, other KCC colleagues;

·             Kent Children’s University – focused on children at KS2, offering a range of learning experiences outside school  to raise children’s aspirations;

·             ‘Playing for Success’ – delivered in four centres across Kent, for children at KS2 and KS3, offering learning in a different environment and utilising Sport and ICT to help literacy, numeracy and ICT skills; and

• The Healthy Schools Programme

The key areas of my work as Parenting Commissioner are:-

·             development and implementation of the Parent Support Strategy for Kent;

·              ‘Parents’ Voice’ - a mechanism to listen to and support parents;

·             Family Liaison Officers and Parent Support Advisors; and

·             Promoting the engagement of fathers.

In addition I have responsibility for Play, this involves:

·             the Play Strategy for Kent, which is being developed with District Councils and is out for consultation at the moment; and

·             the implementation of the Government funded Play Builder Programme, developed with District and Parish Councils, and the voluntary sector to improve and expand play sites and opportunities for children across Kent.

The literacy and numeracy results for KS2 are not good.  How do you think the Kent Children’s University (KCU) will help these?

This is definitely an area for improvement, as we have identified a gap in attainment in literacy and numeracyin the past two years.  ES is often seen as a bolt-on, and people do not see its potential role and range of influence.  They have not seen it as a key contributor to improve standards.  Both KCU and Playing For Success were identified as having the potential to have a positive impact on standards in these areas, but it has been a challenge to make sure schools understand the aims of the programme and are able to make informed decisions about referring pupils there, are clear on their expectations for these pupils, share their pupil data with the programme managers and are able to measure the impact of it effectively.  This has been a challenge but we have recently started making progress on this. Partners had previously understood the role of the KCU and the Playing for Success  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

Please introduce yourselves and outline your roles and responsibilities.

(DC) I am the Director of Cultural Services, responsible for Library, Arts and   Sports Services, and Adult Education.

(NB) I am the Head of the Kent Youth Service and the Lead Officer for Extended Services, and oversee the countywide delivery of youth work.

Please give a strategic overview of the services you manage and how these services impact on ES in Kent.

(DC) My services support the provision of ES in schools in the following ways:-

• we advise on planning, eg for sports development and arts development;
• we advise on books and libraries, and on a range of skills provision;
• we act as a conduit or link between schools and the voluntary sector, and strengthen links between schools and communities;  
• we have a quality assurance role, eg in sports provision, as in the Find New Talent programme in Shepway;
• I see our developmental role being broad, covering other aspects of a child’s life apart from school, eg parenting training and skills development;
• we aim to broaden the impact of schools – eg 7000 people have so far taken part in Family Learning, which includes literacy, numeracy and communication skills;
• we support doorstep libraries, and support parents to read to and with their children;
• we support initiatives like Bookstart, which provides a book for every child born in Kent;
• we extend the possibilities in schools for competitive sports.  Last year, 30,000 school children took part in the Kent School Games, which were the biggest such games in Europe; and
• we have an integrating role in delivering English for Speakers of Other Languages in the community.

Overall, we are involved in some very promising work, which will have increased significance in the future.  Our starting point is to look at the child in the context of the family and community around them.

In your role as sports providers, are you involved with Sport England? Do you expect your role to increase in the lead-up to the 2012 Olympics?

(DC) Yes. Kent is the beacon authority for Olympic sports development in the UK, due to its leadership and the high standard of work going on here.

Does Cultural Services include drama and heritage?

(DC) Yes, we support art and drama in schools. Some is provided as a matter of course, while other provision is in response to requests from schools.

What is your view of Total Place?  How would you achieve integrated Directorates to benefit from this?

(DC) We already work in the Total Place way across our own Directorate and with other directorates. This linking makes is easier to add value, and has increased over the last two years. We have many joint capital programmes with other units.

How do links work in the Districts - for instance, the Youth Service linking with the Children’s Trust?

(DC)  These links work well locally as they are on a small scale.

Please describe the structure of the Youth Service and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

Please introduce yourself and outline your role and responsibilities.

I am the Extended Services Lead Manager in CFE, and also have responsibility for Healthy Schools.  I was recently the project lead of the Community Use of Schools (CUS) project. Members have a copy of the project report. 

The project arose out of a desire to review the community use element of the core offer and the impact that extended services had had in increasing the use of secondary school sites for community use. The project focussed on structured community use of school premises.  It links to Total Place, as the project suggests that the appropriate way forward, and the way that the Extended Services team has worked to date, is to work with the community and local partners to assess the facilities which are needed in a community and asks how local schools might be able to help meet them. The aim is not to endanger other providers of community activities, such as village halls, but to identify gaps and assess the ability of schools to fill these gaps.  As part of the project, survey work was undertaken with schools and was overseen by a steering group, with representatives from schools, CFE and other KCC directorates.

What could the CUS project achieve in terms of ES?

The aim was to explore greater structured and organised use of school sites, working with partners, and to highlight the opportunities and challenges for developing areas of the premises that the school could use in the day and the community could use outside school hours.

Have academies embraced community use?

Some have. The historic relationship which exists between a school and its community affects the way both parties might view any kind of link, like ES.

In its options for moving forward, the CUS document recommends identifying the facilities which are available at a school and how these can be marketed for ES use, and the need to lease facilities at a market rate.

For some schools we do not have complete information about the full range of facilities available.  Some work needs to be done on this, and on the issue of tracking the level of lettings happening on school sites at any point in time.  I don’t know how feasible this work will be with the resources I have available.

Some facilities and organisations promote using the letting fee paid by one user, perhaps a commercial enterprise, to cover or reduce the costs to other users, perhaps volunteer bodies.  Is there anything to stop a school adopting this model?

No, as long as community use of the school does not deplete the school’s own funds.  A commercial hirer could pay a commercial rate to hire the premises, and this would cover the initial costs of opening up the building and employing the caretaker. While the premises are open, other users who are not able to pay such a rate can use other parts of the premises at a ‘subsidised’, reduced rate.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.