Active Communities
How schools can contribute to area regeneration
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The connection between area disadvantage and schooling is a long-standing policy concern. While previous research has concentrated upon area impact upon schools, this report, by members of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation identifies school contribution toward area regeneration. Schools serving two disadvantaged areas are examined in relation to their roles, activities undertaken, and their experiences of success and problems.
Title: How schools can contribute to area regeneration
Author: Joseph Rowntree Foundation
Series: Findings 983
Number of pages: 4
Date Published: September 2003.
The study investigated wider regeneration initiatives, in relation to schools and their effectiveness within their community. Three secondary and six primary schools serving two disadvantaged areas in the north of England were studied, with interviews involving teachers, pupils, parents, community members, and local authority officers within the two-year project. Of the study areas:
one area was large and relatively homogenous, with schools imposing a clear single community relationship.
one area was small, surrounded by several distinct communities, with disadvantaged area pupils forming only a small population minority, therefore school priority within the area was restricted.
Study outcomes
The study found:
Schools' activities had important small-scale and local effects. However, there was little evidence of larger-scale effects that would transform the prospects of significant numbers of pupils or the character of local communities.
Heads, teachers and other stakeholders held a range of views about the role of schools. These fell into two main categories; those who saw schools as a community resource, and those who saw schools' main task as enhancing pupils' personal opportunities.
Contributing Factors
In practice, the activity range and school attitudes undertook were not clear-cut, and were influenced by many factors, sometimes lacking coherence. Much depended on the:
head teacher views
local authority approach
school extent to which being able to relate to a single area.
School Roles
The schools used differing contributions to their areas, and undertook community-related activities. These included:
running breakfast clubs,
opening school facilities for community use
organising courses to help parents become involved in their children's education
making links with local businesses etc.
What worked - and what did not
The school notions of area contribution could be differed, but the research team classified attitudes into two main conceptions. These were identifying:
community involvement as distracting schools' core business of raising individual attainment. The foremost school objective was to create a more supportive and stimulating environment for pupils than they could find in their own communities.
that pupils only fulfill their potential if families and communities were involved in supporting children's education and raising aspirations.
The team observed that schools often remained disconnected from wider regeneration strategies. Schools felt dominated by the schools standards agenda, and were generally poorly informed about the nature and needs of local communities. Community members, community workers and other agencies did not always find schools to be easy partners, often seeing them as narrowly focused on their own concerns rather than contributing to wider regeneration efforts.
Conclusion: Towards a coherent approach
The study concluded it was unreasonable to expect schools to solve intractable disadvantage problems alone. A long-term strategy, in which schools play a part, but also addresses underlying factors, might help to overcome these disadvantages. This stems from schools lacking clear and coherent expectations as to their roles.
In order to enable schools to take on a wider role, it would be helpful if the national schools standards agenda could be rethought. A focus on enhancing children's learning and life-chances is essential, but this could be separated from the particular delivery mechanism, eg mechanistic target-setting, which has characterised policy in recent years.
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Last update: Tuesday, August 26, 2008