Extended Schools in UK Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Extended Schools in UK - Essay ExampleIt has thus a host of multifarious activities to perform as a cornerstone of the emerging k like a shotledge economy and the hub of the community life. In this essay we explore the theory and practice of, and the issues around, extended schooling. The discussion would be more meaningful against the background of the history of the thought of extended school and its implementation. We, therefore, turn first to a short review of the literature on extended school in the following section.The project of extended schooling first appeared as a full-service schooling initiative in the United States and has been functioning there as part of the school system for a number of years. Some of these services have included the provision of welfare amenities of wellness and cleanliness, support services in the form of school counsellors, and various(a) sports and youth activities. However, the recent interest in full-service schooling has its origins in the remedial or ameliorative concerns, which appear to have been basically transplanted into the extended schools in England. The centralise has been on the provision of health and social care services. The new community schools in Scotland (1999) was said to have been the first major implementation of the extended school scheme in the UK. In Wales, the idea of community-focused schools has been used to investigate the need and feasibility of a similar provision. However, the idea of providing different services on school premises is just new (Walker et al., 2000 Tett, 2000 Raham, 1998, 2000 Smith, 2001). Since the nineteenth century there have been various examples of schools offering medical and welfare services alongside their traditional activities of teaching. Dryfoos has argued that the original model was that of the school-based health and social services centre where services were brought in by outside agencies in concurrence with school personnel ( Dryfoos,1994, p.142). They w ere to be one stop, collaborative institutions (ibid, p.13). As to what elements should now be present in the concept, Dryfoos seems to be of the view that such a service package should include both quality education and support services (1994. p.13). The underlying principle behind the concept of the full-service or extended school is based on the recognition that schooling, for many, would become meaningful only when a range of welfare and health services were in place along with quality teaching (Smith, 2001a). Social disadvantage must be addressed in order to effectively tackle educational underachievement (Olasov and Petrillo, 1994 Carlson et al., 1995 Raham, 1998 Smith, 2001). Dryfoos (1993) has noted that the impetus for the increase of the full-service school approach emanated from the recognition that the schools were often unable to cope adequately with individual student needs in areas such as the social, health, emotional and heathenish requirements of their pupils. He nce, much of the literature is based on the premise that schools cannot do it alone in the light of the multiple challenges they, and their students, families and communities face (Dryfoos, 1994,).Schools in UK have to cope with problems