Below is the text of a public lecture on extended schooling
given by Terri Dowty at University of London Institute of Education on

May 12th 2005
 

What is extended schooling?

The DfES Five Year Strategy sets out the Government's goal that over time every primary school will be able to offer:

It is intended that the service will eventually extend to secondary schools, offering childcare for those up to 14 - and the Government has said that ultimately it wants every school to become an extended school.

Children’s Services

A range of children’s services would be concentrated on the school site. In many ways this isn’t a bad idea: it could make it easier for families to access services. However, it does raise some issues, though I haven’t time today to do more than outline them:

I’m sure there are many other questions to be asked about this aspect of extended schools, but today I want to focus on the idea of extending the school day from 8am to 6pm, looking at it through the lens of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

As far as I can see, at least half a dozen Articles are engaged by this proposal:

Article12

States Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.

There has been no consultation with children over these plans. Only a recommendation that they should be consulted on some of the details of the actual provision. Children have not been asked whether they would choose an extended school day.

After-school care and ‘breakfast clubs’ aren’t a new idea – they’ve been around for many years. In 2000, as part of the ESRC 5-16 programme, Fiona Smith (Birmingham University) undertook research into children’s attitudes towards after-school care.

She found that:

19% of children actively chose to be there

76% were there because their parents were working

86% of children enjoyed themselves – although this declined with age

What the figures don’t tell us is anything about the 14% who didn’t enjoy themselves, nor what the 81% who had not made an active choice might have preferred: enjoying something doesn’t mean that it’s a preferred option, and in any case, does ‘enjoyment’ mean enthusiasm or "yeah, it’s OK"?

One of Smith’s conclusions was that we needed to "re-conceptualise children as the primary users of the service (rather than parents or local employers)"

Why are children not considered the primary users? It might help to put the plans in context by looking at the political pressure for extended schools.

In 2002 the Government’s Performance and Innovation Unit (now No 10’s Strategy Unit) brought out a report called ‘Delivering for Children and Families’. They concluded that:

"The availability of good quality, affordable childcare is key to achieving some important Government objectives. Childcare can improve educational outcomes for children. Childcare enables parents, particularly mothers, to go out to work, or increase their hours in work….. It also plays a key role in extending choice for women by enhancing their ability to compete in the labour market on more equal terms…..

Childcare can also play an important role in meeting other top level objectives, for example in improving health, boosting productivity, improving public services, closing the gender pay gap and reducing crime. The targets to achieve 70 per cent employment amongst lone parents by 2010 and to eradicate child poverty by 2020 are those that are most obviously related. Childcare is essential for these objectives to be met.

Provision within schools…..will also help to maximise the cost effectiveness of new investment to create places, by making better use of existing infrastructure and resources whilst also meeting the need for a mixed economy of provision. It will help to promote the benefits of integrating care and education and enable provision of childcare that will meet parents’ needs and preferences."

Operating from a school site may offer a head start in marketing, allowing a faster ramp-up of provision. Parents may have greater trust in a provider operating at the school, while the provider can communicate and publicise services to a captive audience of school parents."

Hard on the heels of this PIU report came the DfES Extended Schools Pathfinder Initiative, which funded projects in 25 Local Education Authorities (LEAs) from November 2002 to August 2003. The final report on these projects found that schools were pleased at the improved attainment and behaviour of children, and that many parents were enthusiastic.

In March of this year, the European Commission met to examine Europe-wide progress on the Lisbon Strategy: the EU’s 10-year plan for economic growth. The urgent priority agreed was progress in increasing employment, particularly towards the targets for women’s employment, and childcare is seen as vital to this. (I should add that ‘improving educational attainment’ is already fundamental to the Lisbon Strategy).

In all of these reports and high-level discussions there is no mention of what children think about all this. But then, against all these competing, grown-up interests, perhaps it isn’t any surprise that their views aren’t considered relevant

We shouldn’t forget Article 3, either:

Article 3

In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration

The closest thing I could find to a statement of the benefits of extended schooling to children was this, on the Government ‘teachernet’ website:]

"Schools offering extended activities and services have already seen major benefits.

Benefits for pupils and schools:

There is plenty of evidence that the ‘best interests’ of parents, schools and the economy have been a consideration in these plans, and they are also in the best interests of employers, who are let off the hook by not having to consider their responsibilities towards employees with families, or towards the communities on which their businesses depend. There is no sign, though, that the best interests of children have come under any consideration during the formulation of this policy – well, unless you believe that the only thing that matters in a child’s life is educational attainment.

I’m going to take Article 13 & 15 together because there is considerable overlap here.

Article 13

The child shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child's choice.

Article 15

States Parties recognize the rights of the child to freedom of association and to freedom of peaceful assembly.

By keeping a child in the same place for 10 hours per day, 5 days per week, for around 46 weeks per year, we are drastically reducing her exposure to the world beyond the school gates. When we are talking about a very young child, the likelihood is that she will only spend around 2 waking hours per day in any other environment.

It’s hard to see how a child will have the opportunity to mix with others outside a very restricted age band. If in the course of an average day she doesn’t even go outside the school gates, where will she see babies or elderly people? (or even cats or dogs?) Although much has been made of turning schools into some kind of ‘community hub’, in reality, plenty of people would never have any reason to go there.

By keeping children so cocooned, we risk leaving them without vital life-learning about negotiating relationships without adult supervision, dealing with very different people, coping with worrying situations, avoiding trouble and traffic. We deprive them of overhearing adult conversation and salacious gossip. We restrict their access to ideas that may be alarming or unsavoury – all the challenges that will help them to form their own opinions. By removing all these risky things, we remove an important source of information about the real world and replace it with a parallel, sanitised version.

What will happen in schools that have a particular bias – for example, the city academies that are run by people who subscribe to a particular set of views such as creationism?

What about the potential for social polarisation? If we reach a point where it is accepted that children spend most of their lives at school, we will have effectively removed them from society. Certainly some adults would welcome that!

Again, I’m going to take these final 2 Articles together because of the overlap:

Article 16

No child shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his or her honour and reputation.

Article 31

States Parties recognize the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.

Is children’s participation in activities that they undertake in what is meant to be their free time going to be observed and given a score? That’s not as fanciful as you may think. During the focus on pre-school provision a few years ago, nursery teachers expressed concern at having to perform assessments on 4-year-olds. They were assured that these assessments would not find their way on to any pupil record. But look at this extract from last year’s DfES Spending Review:

So much for informal assessment!

I mentioned earlier that the Performance and Innovation Unit published a report on childcare. As part of the research, mothers who were not working full-time were asked why they were not doing so. A third of them said that they wanted to spend time with their children - but this was disregarded in the report, which concluded that ‘lack of childcare’ was the problem. If the priority really is to get as many adults working full-time as possible, it’s hard to see where family life fits into the scheme of things.

Along the same lines, an interesting piece of research into children’s control of their time was undertaken in the ESRC’s Children 5-16 research project. One of the findings was that:

"Children said that they enjoy time with their families above that spent on their own or with friends. Children said that they valued being with their families – engaging in ordinary domestic life – as much as doing things with their families, such as outings and special events."

Children, like adults, want time to be at home, pottering around doing things that interest them, or doing nothing very much. They need a safe place to be a private person, and space to think. Psychotherapeutic thinkers as diverse as Winnicott, Bucholz and Tomasi for example believe that an evolving capacity to be alone is a vital component of the maturational process and for mental health. Another significant person in the world of psychotherapy - Anthony Storr – devoted a whole book to the consideration of solitude. He concluded that:

"some development of the capacity to be alone is necessary if the brain is to function at its best, and if the individual is to fulfil his highest potential. Human beings easily become alienated from their own deepest needs and feelings. Learning, thinking, innovation and maintaining contact with one’s own inner world are all facilitated by solitude."

Anthony Storr: Solitude

In all of the descriptions of what extended schooling will offer to children, I haven’t yet seen any mention of providing them with quiet, private space. Nor is there any mention of ‘play’.

In commenting on the Government’s plans, London Play says (in a rather more upbeat way than I could manage):

"The quick-witted reader will have noticed the absence of the word 'play', but don't despair. Central to the notion of Extended Schools is that schools should base their development plans on local consultations ... So if local people, children and parents, say that what is important is more space and opportunity for children to play … providing more play opportunities should be an important part of Extended School developments. But it will have to be fought for."

I confess to finding that rather Pollyanna-ish, and am aghast that any child should fight for the right to play.

But in any case, the DfES intends that children will engage in ‘study support’ which:

"….embraces a wide range of voluntary learning activities that young people participate in and enjoy, such as homework clubs, creative ventures, sports, games, mentoring and opportunities for volunteering and community service."

Young people enjoy homework clubs? Remember the ESRC research on children’s attitudes to after-school care? Fiona Smith specifically mentions that children hated homework clubs! I think that brings me back to where I started: the complete disregard for children’s own views.

Just thinking about the relentless pressure that children are already experiencing, and the appalling figures for children’s mental health, It seems to me that it’s time to stop revving them up like engines on a production line.