In countries across Europe (and, indeed, across the world), schools are being developed which look beyond their classrooms and try to engage with the whole of their students’ lives. Whilst their main concern remains with teaching and learning, they see the way their students learn as inseparable from how they develop as people, and therefore from the lives they lead outside the classroom, amongst their friendship groups, in their families, and in their communities. These schools, therefore, offer additional services and activities to children, families and community members, often in partnership with other agencies. In some cases, this is done simply to enrich further the already-supportive environments in which students live and learn. However, in disadvantaged urban environments, it is more likely to be seen as a way of addressing the significant out-of-school challenges which students face and which create barriers to their learning. Developing schools of this kind, therefore, is often seen as a way of tackling the problems of urban and social disadvantage in urban settings.

There is no single name for schools of this kind. They are known, amongst other things, as full service schools, community schools, broad schools, all-day schools, extended schools. This indicates that there is no single model on which such schools are based. Each national and local administration seems to develop its own variant, and, indeed, individual schools typically vary from each other in their provision and aims even within the same administration. Not surprisingly, therefore, there is little sharing of knowledge and experience across national boundaries. This is particularly the case within Europe, not least because policy makers and researchers alike tend to look to the USA for a lead in this field.

This symposium aims to go some way towards remedying this situation by sharing knowledge across national boundaries and by adopting a European (rather than an American) focus. It therefore brings together papers from a range of countries which address four key questions:

·         To what extent and in what ways are ‘full service’ schools developing in this country?

·         What are the aims, rationales and expectations of such schools?

·         What  evidence is there of the impact of such schools on social and educational outcomes, particularly in urban settings?

·         What developments are possible or likely in future?

In their opening and concluding comments, the chair and discussant will briefly describe the international history of 'full service and extended' schools, and set out some of the key issues that this history raises.