Maidenhead & Windsor

Schools across Maidenhead borough which are opening their doors even wider to pupils, their families and the local community will soon benefit from additional funding to help them develop their extended services.

The extended Maidenhead school programme is part of a national initiative to bring about a significant change in how schools are used and the Royal Borough has secured funding from the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) to help schools provide a new range of services, such as breakfast, homework and after-school clubs, adult learning, childcare, parenting support and convenient access to other services.

To get the extended schools programme off the ground locally two Maidenhead schools clusters were formed last year – centred on Dedworth in Windsor and on Desborough/Ellington schools in Maidenhead. With the help of funding secured from the DfES they have already made significant progress – and now a report to cabinet next Thursday (May 25) proposes further allocation of the government funding to potential clusters of schools in the second wave of boosting the extended schools initiative.

Cllr Cynthia Pitteway, lead member for Maidenhead education, underlined the key role schools play in their respective communities.

She said: "The Royal Borough has been fortunate in securing funding from the DfES and we aim to use that money to support schools in cluster areas to extend their services for the benefit of pupils, their families and local people. Clusters work by encouraging schools to provide different and complementary services so that their pupils and wider communities can access a wide range of support and help with the minimum amount of duplication."

Maidenhead Cllr Pitteway added: "We are already seeing very positive developments in areas where the clusters have been working for over a year and I believe this additional cash injection will boost extended schools and make them key features of community life throughout the borough."

Following the Maidenhead borough's extended schools conference in March, schools were invited to express interest in taking the initiative forward in their areas. As a result the proposed clusters and their funding allocation are going to cabinet for approval as follows:

* Datchet cluster (Churchmead Secondary, Wraysbury Primary and Datchet St Mary's Primary) - £50,000
* Eton/Eton Wick cluster (Eton Wick First, Eton Porny First) - £30,000
* Oakfield cluster (Oakfield First, The Lawns Nursery, Trevelyan Middle, Clewer Green First, Trinity St Stephen's First, Queen Anne First) - £5,000 (there will also be significant investment in a children's centre in this area)
* King's Court First - £5,000 to kick start a new cluster next year
* Furze Platt (Furze Platt Infant, Junior and Senior schools) - £7,000 to kick start a new cluster next year
* Cookham/Bisham cluster (Cookham Dean Primary, Cookham Rise Primary, Cookham Nursery, Holy Trinity Primary, Bisham Primary) - £5,000 for a parenting support project
* Cox Green cluster (Cox Green Secondary, Wessex Primary, Lowbrook Primary, Burchetts Green Infant, Knowl Hill Primary, Woodlands Park Primary, White Waltham Primary, Waltham St Lawrence Primary ) - £50,000 (with £15,000 ring fenced for use in rural schools)
* Larchfield/Boyne Hill cluster (Boyne Hill Infant, All Saints Junior, Larchfield) - £30,000.

There will be a special training course later in the summer to give schools the information and tools they need to launch their new extended services.

By 2010 the government expects that a range of core services will be in, or accessible through, all schools including high quality childcare, a wide range of extra-curricular, special interest and business activities, parenting support, swift and easy referral to a wide range of services and providing wider community access to ICT, sports and arts facilities, including adult learning.

The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead