Wychall Primary School, Northfield, Birmingham

Left to right:
· The Rt Hon Beverley Hughes MP, Minister for Children, Young People and Families
· The Rt Hon Alan Johnson MP, Secretary of State for Education and Skills
· Thérèse Allen, Head of Wychall Primary School
· Tracy Wearn, Community Co-ordinator
· Sheila Moore, Social Worker
· Janette Moran, Childcare Co-ordinator

Head Teacher, Thérèse Allen, and the team at Wychall Primary School have used their extended school status as an opportunity to establish a comprehensive family support team. Their out of school childcare provision has had a noticeable impact on the school’s SATs results, which went up dramatically last year. The adult learning they provide is directly tailored around the needs of the local community and is tackling the problems of poverty and depression in the two council estates served by the school. “We have been successful in creating an exciting and challenging environment for the children while they were with us,” says Thérèse Allen, “but they had to go back out into the community each day, and without our grappling with the problems there, our success would have quickly hit a plateau.”