In Canterbury Coastal Local Children's Services Partnership (LCSP), all schools are offering some or all of the Extended Schools Core offer. Extended Schools in the Canterbury Coastal Partnership have a history of good collaboration and a team of Head Teachers who work well together and endorse the Extended Schools agenda.

Wider Community Access

Many of our schools provide access to their facilities for the local community, which include offering adult basic skills courses, other adult learning, access to community sports facilities, access to computers and ICT equipment, community arts projects and many other activities. Of the 18 schools within the Partnership, only three are not offering any access to their facilities at present, with the remaining 15 offering a variety of activities including adult basic skills, community sports activities, use of their ICT facilities, arts activities and various other courses.

Swift and Easy Access

All our schools have access to the Multi Agency Cascade Service (MACS) team, which is an early family support service for children and families in the Canterbury District. The aim of the service is to help children get the most of from their learning opportunities at whatever age. MACS also supports the parents and carers of these young people with any difficulties they may be having at schools, home or in the community.  The MACS team includes Social Workers, Learning Link Workers (who can help bridge the gap between home and school), Primary Health Workers who can support children and families with their emotional wellbeing and lastly Kent Safe Schools Officers who work in targeted schools delivering peer mentoring and youth action work.  The MACS team, along with the Special Educational Needs Coodinators (SENCo’s) in schools ensure every child has swift and easy access to the services they need. During the past two years, Extended Schools Managers have funded the development of both community and multi-agency rooms on school sites. These rooms have provided the space for children and their families to access services within the school and with support from the schools staff.

Wrap around Childcare

All our secondary schools within the Partnership offer a safe place for their learners to go before and after school. This could be in the form of organised activities, opening of their libraries and ICT suites or after school clubs (which unlike formal activities, are there to replicate a home-from-home experience)

The Coastal Partnership has a total of five after school clubs for primary aged children spread across the partnership offering childcare from the end of the school day until 6pm. These also offer the home-from-home experience, as well as a range of leisure organised by the leaders. Although the After School Clubs are charged for, the aim is for them to be affordable to parents whilst sustainable at the same time. A number of these clubs are run on school sites by third parties, with others being run by the schools themselves. The importance a healthy breakfast is recognised as a beneficial way for all children to start the day. To help families with this, the Partnership has nine breakfast clubs. Children in the Coastal Partnership have access to many out of school activities, and some schools offer organised activities during the holidays. Primary aged children have access to 2 holiday play schemes running full time during the school holidays, and 2 other schemes that run on weekly time tables.

Varied Menu of Activities

All schools will be offering a good range of activities within the Partnership, and many linking with each other to offer join activities. A good example of this is the shared vocational curriculum offered between our secondary schools. All of our schools are offering some of the following, and 2 are offering all of the following:

• Learning Support
• Homework Clubs
• Art Activities
• Sports Activities
• Mentoring Programmes
• Other organised activities
• Activities run from 8am
• Activities run till 6pm

Parenting Support

All our schools have access to trained Parent Support Advisors (PSA’s), who work to support parents who are finding the education process challenging. In June and July 2007 the PSA’s ran 18 information sessions on transition from primary to secondary school for parents. They are also trained in and run parenting courses at different levels for parents to access. Schools are offering family learning sessions, and family support sessions for parents on a needs basis. Extended Schools continues to fund family courses through the Children’s University, Dad’s and Lads workshops at Kent County Cricket Ground and lots more!

If you have any enquiries about Extended Schools, please contact the local Extended Schools Development Manager Steve Charman by phone on 01227 284564 / 07825 013372, or by email steve.charman@kent.gov.uk.

• Extended Schools and Children's Services
• Extended Schools Overview
• Thinking Family

Canterbury Coastal Extended Schools

Briary receives Advanced Extended School status!

Congratulations to Briary School for becoming the first school in Canterbury Coastal LCSP - and the second primary school in the Canterbury area - to gain recognition for their Extended Services at Established level! The school, which had already achieved recognition at Emerged level three years ago, was successful in achieving this sought-after status after presenting a portfolio of evidence and powerpoint presentation to a panel of scrutineers and observers at Oakwood House in Maidstone last month. This evidence was supported by a context statement, case study and review statements of the progress Briary had made over the 3 years, which were made available to the panel prior to the recognition meeting.

Extended Services Co-ordinator and critical friend to the school, Vicky Evans, said: 'This is a fantastic achievement for Briary and the local area. A lot of hard work from myself and Ben Cooper, the headteacher, has gone into this, and we are both absolutely thrilled with the result. It has been a great process to go through and I am keen to support other schools in the area to work towards gaining recognition for all the fantastic things they offer to their children, parents, staff and wider community '. 

Headteacher Ben Cooper said: 'I am immensely proud of what we do here at Briary, and proud that we are one of the first schools in the area to gain recognition for what we offer. This process has highlighted the amazing efforts our staff and partners make to meet all our children's needs and to give them the best possible start in life. Our next step is to develop a fully integrated campus approach through our site users forum. As always, we would be happy to share what we have learnt along the way and I would encourage all schools to consider this process as the way forward. There is plenty of help available both from your local ESCO and from other schools who have been through the process already. It highlighted for us what we still needed to do to make Briary an Advanced Extended School.