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Role of the governing body

Offering extended services is a key part of the Every Child Matters (ECM) agenda. Delivering a strong vision for schools depends on effective, accountable governing bodies. As a governor, you are responsible for consulting widely and considering operational concerns when making strategic decisions for your school’s future.

What are extended services?

Offering extended services is an important way of achieving the five ECM outcomes, which children have identified as being important to them. These are: being healthy, staying safe, enjoying and achieving, making a positive contribution and achieving economic wellbeing. As part of their extended services, schools work with the community and agencies to offer:

  • high-quality wraparound childcare
  • a varied menu of activities to extend and enrich learning
  • parenting support, including information sessions for parents and family learning
  • swift and easy referral to a wide range of specialist support services
  • wider community access to ICT, sports and arts facilities, including adult learning

A specific goal of the ECM agenda is to have one Sure Start children’s centre for every community by 2010. These centres bring together early years provision with health and family support services for the under fives. There are strong synergies between this and the extended schools core offer, with the focus of both being to lift children out of poverty by enabling parents to work.

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The role of governors

Your governing body plays a strategic role in ensuring that your school delivers an effective range of services. Extended services form a key part of schools’ improvement plans, so you, as a governor, need to be involved in planning, setting goals and monitoring impact. You have a responsibility to ensure that you have explored a range of options and chosen those that best fit the needs of your school.

To support this, the Education Act 2002 puts a statutory requirement on governing bodies to consult widely before providing extended services. Governing bodies should also explore opportunities to join up with Sure Start children’s centres as part of this work.

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The issues governors need to consider

Although the role of governors is a strategic one, you do need to be aware of operational concerns. For instance:

  • Staffing issues - governing bodies must abide by the School Governance (Contracts) (England) Regulations 2005. These set out an approach to workforce relations in situations that may involve transfers of staff from school to an outside service provider.
  • Premises - the governing body should be clear about the details of any agreements with outside bodies when they use school premises to provide services.
  • Insurance - your local authority’s insurance should cover any liability arising from extended school services, but you should check this to be sure.
  • Inclusion - schools offering extended services to the wider community will be responsible, under the Disability Discrimination Act 2004, to take reasonable steps to make changes as necessary to the physical features of school premises where the community has access.

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Example of good practice

Martenscroft Early Excellence Centre is both a nursery school and a Sure Start children’s centre serving part of the Manchester area. The centre offers before- and after-school activities, as well as holiday care. Open year-round from 7.30am to 5.30pm, the centre has capacity for 102 children. Prospective parents discuss their needs with the centre and are offered the most appropriate service. The centre is also a base for outreach workers, health services and adult learning.

The governors have not set up a separate governing body for the day care service because of the integrated approach to the centre’s core nursery and day care provision. This integrated approach extends to the staff, with day care workers now becoming teaching assistants (TAs) on TA pay scales. The governors wanted to avoid a two-tier system that could have been divisive and unwieldy. Governors also plan to set up a management committee - with representatives of the governing body, the centre and key partners - to oversee the running of the centre, which will report back to the governing body.

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