More 4 U @ St Albans South
Extended Schools' Consortium

NEWS

NEW CONSORTIUM DIRECTORY!!

We are pleased to offer you the opportunity to download our new Consortium Directory - a one stop shop for all local services and helplines for parents/carers. All children attending one of the schools within the consortium should have received a copy of the directory. If you would like further copies, or if you would like to advertise your services in the next edition of the booklet, please contact NIkki Howes Extended Schools Coordinator on telephone number 07912 792215 or 01923 484322

More 4 U @ St Albans South Consortium Directory

NEW BREAKFAST CLUB AT KILLIGREW PRIMARY SCHOOL

A new Breakfast Club is starting on Tuesday 20th April for families who attend Killigrew School.Please click below for more details and a booking form.

Killigrew breakfast Club Flyer

NEW AFTER SCHOOL CLUB IN PARK STREET/HOW WOOD

We have a new After School Club opening on January 5th 2010 in a brand new, fantastic log cabin at How Wood School to serve families at How Wood and Park Street Schools. If you need good quality childcare before or after school, please click below for more details.

After School Club For Park Street Families

After School Club For How Wood Families

"FIREFIGHTER" FOR THE DAY

Some pupils from London Colney Primary School were given the opportunity to go to St Albans Fire Station for the day. If you would like to see the new recruits in action, click on the link below to view more photographs.

"Firefighter" for the day

BODYWORKS PROGRAMME 'COMING SOON!'

All Schools in St. Albans will be given the chance over the next two years to host this completely free Bodyworks programme which is a fun, healthy living after school club supported and organised by the St Albans ESCos. Click below to see details of the progamme at your school.

Bodyworks Programme

ANNUAL CONSORTIUM QUIZ

Our Annual Quiz was held on Friday 13th March 2009 at London Colney Primary School. It was a great afternoon with children from all the schools in the Consortium taking part.

Congratulations go to Killigrew School who were the winning team!

LEARNING IN LIBRARIES

Hertfordshire Libraries have many community events happening across the county including IT sessions, Knitting surgery, Baby Rhyme Time, Six book challenge, and many more. Please click below to view the newsletter with details of all events happening at a library near you.

Learning In Libraries Flyer

GET BACK INTO.....GETTING MORE LOCAL ADULTS ACTIVE!

Active St Albans (the Community Sports and Physical Activity Network for the City and District of St Albans) are introducing a new programme for adults to encourage a more active lifestyle. Please click below to view their recent press release.

Get Back Into Press Release

NATIONAL FAMILY WEEK

National Family Week is a new national occasion to celebrate family life in the UK. The first National Family Week took place from 25th to 31st May 2009. The week included hundreds of events and activities run by local authorities, charities, companies, the media and schools, encouraging millions of people to celebrate being part of a family.

NEW COMMUNITY NOTICEBOARDS

We have put up Community Notice boards by the entrances to all of our Schools - check them out for up to date information and courses/activities in the area.

ANNUAL HERTFORDSHIRE GOVERNORS CONFERENCE

Nikki Howes recently attended the Annual Hertfordshire Governers Conference where Olympian Roger Black gave the opening speech. He then came over to talk to the ESCO's about the work they are doing in Hertfordshire.

CHANNEL MOGO GOES LIVE!

www.channelmogo.org is the Hertfordshire Children's Trust Partnership's new online interactive website for young people in the county which includes information on a range of topics important to young people.

This inter-active website offers vidcasts, mp3 downloads, competitions and opportunities for discussion using Channel Mogo discussion boards and webchats. Young people have the opportunity to contribute their own videos, music and creative writing to the web site.

It is also a great way for young people to find out what is happening in their own area and across the county, as well as publicise their own events. It is free to join and provides a safe online community for young people in Hertfordshire.

The website has been designed to support young people with a wide range of abilities.  As well as involving young people in the design of the site, we have consulted with professionals supporting young people with learning difficulties and disabilities and developed picture icons to meet their needs.

NEWSLETTERS

Autumn '08	Summer '08	Spring '08
Autumn '07	Spring '09	Summer '09
Autumn '09	Spring 2010

Consortium Logo Competition Winner!

Well done to Rhys Armstrong who designed our fabulous new Consortium Logo! we had over 300 entries from 8 schools so competition was fierce. The winning design was chosen from 10 shortlisted ones by the Head Teachers from the Consortium. Below is the finished logo now that it has been graphically designed.

Consortium Quiz Event!

We held our very first General Knowledge Quiz competition at Killigrew Juniors In March and all the pupils representing the schools did amazingly well!
It was a very close run thing but the victors were St Bernadette and they took home the winners plaque which is now in proud position in their entrance hall.

Congratulations!

Successful Gardening Day @ London Colney Primary School

So many people turned out to help us create a sensory garden and new pond area in the fields @ London Colney Primary School. A HUGE thank you to all the children, mums, dads, grandparents, aunties, family members, extended family family members, friends, Governors and staff who turned up on a cold Saturday morning to dig and plant! Thank you to the weather for not raining!

Also a very big thank you to O2 for giving us £1000 towards this project; Ayletts Nurseries for helping us with knowledge and a discount and the St Albans Fire Service for turning up at exactly the right time to fill the pond!

We had a fabulous time - the old disused pond was dug out and we found over 2 dozen frogs! We popped them safely into a watering can and they were released into the new, bigger pond when we had finished. I think they were suprised to find that they now had water to live in and no sludge! We also managed to keep the lillies and put those back in as well.

Children made windchimes out of copper pipe and bamboo and these were hung in the trees; bird boxes and bird feeders were hung from the trees; raised beds were dug out and filled with herbs and plants - all with a lovely fragrance or touch and some with gorgeous flowers. The woodland area was planted with over Spring 200 bulbs, some of which by Oscar, our youngest helper at 3 years old who worked ALL day long! We can't wait to see these come out next year. We created two seating areas, one of toadstools and one of natural stone. A bench was also added in the stone pathway. A rockery was also built and filled with alpine plants; we pruned and cut back and chopped and tidied and the results were amazing. The children now have somewhere that they can play and use and the pond will be invaluable to use for pond dipping and supporting delivery of the curriculum in all sorts of ways.

Everybody worked so hard and we had a lot of fun - please take a look at some of the pictures on the Gallery page to see the results.

Research report extracted from the DfES Website

The full report will be available soon on the DfES web site entitled "Evaluation of the Full Service Extended Schools Initiative: Final Report.

"Extended schools lead to better exam results and children being more focused in school, particularly for disadvantaged children, a new Government report issued today shows.

This adds to the Department for Education analysis which found progress in extended schools was around double the rate of the national average between 2005 and 2006.

At Key Stage Four, the percentage of pupils in extended schools achieving 5+A*-C at GCSE increased by just over 5 per cent, compared to a 2.5 per cent increase in the national average over the same period.

By 2010 all schools in England will provide access to a core offer of extended services.
The Universities of Manchester and Newcastle study found that full service extended schools (FSES) had a positive impact on the attainment of pupils and on engagement with learning, family stability and enhanced life chances and generated positive outcomes for families and local people.

The report also found:

• in FSES the gap in performance between pupils eligible for free school meals and those not eligible was reduced (and in some analyses it was eliminated) once the differences between the groups were taken into account;
• in FSES at Key Stage 3 the gap in achievement between pupils eligible for free school meals and those not eligible disappears entirely once other variables were taken into account;
• At Key Stage 4, pupils eligible for free school meals slightly outperformed non-free school meals pupils; and
• At Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 there was a narrower gap between special educational needs (SEN) and non-SEN children in FSES than that seen in others schools.

Positive effects were also felt in relation to the local community. For instance, there were many examples of unemployed adults beginning to see themselves as learners, acquiring qualifications, and finding work.

The schools studied were also found to have a range of other positive impacts on outcomes for pupils, including engagement with learning, family stability and enhanced life chances.
The report emphasized the need for co-ordinators to support schools in developing their extended provision.

Extended schools provide access to a range of services including: study support, 8am to 6pm wrap-around childcare in primary schools, health services, support for parents, adult learning and community activities.

£840m has been provided to support the roll-out of extended schools over 2004 - 2008. This will continue in the next spending round. The Secretary of State recently announced an additional £217m will be invested in 2010-11 for an extended schools subsidy scheme to ensure children from the most disadvantaged families can access extended services that schools charge for outside the school day.

The cost benefit analysis suggests that the benefits of the initiative outweighed the costs and in some cases, the cost benefits were ‘spectacularly successful’.

The FSES initiative was launched in 2003. Local FSES projects received funding from DfES, and came on stream in each of three successive years. Most FSES served areas of disadvantage and in the first year were located in Behaviour Improvement Programme areas. By the end of the initiative, 138 schools were involved, with a further 10 funded through the London Challenge.

This evaluation took place over the three years for which the initiative was funded and aimed to identify: the activities undertaken by participating schools; the processes underpinning these activities; the impacts and outcomes of activities.

The FSES initiative has informed the development of the national extended schools programme. Nearly 5,000 schools are already providing access to the core offer of extended services with all schools planned to be doing so by 2010."

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