There is a long history of ‘full service and extended’ schools in England, reaching back at least as far as the 1920s. For most of this period, developments have been locally-driven. However, the New Labour governments of 1997-2010 promoted ‘extended schools’ on a national basis. Initially, these schools were located mainly in disadvantaged areas, and followed the internationally-familiar pattern of locating additional services on the school site. Latterly, however, the government began to develop an ‘extended services’ agenda, in which schools in all areas were expected to contribute to a coordinated local network of child and family services. This paper traces these developments, and the shifting rationales for extended schools. It reports the findings of a series of national evaluations led by the authors, which point to significant outcomes from schools of this kind, but which also point to limitations in the impacts they are likely to have. Finally, the paper looks to the future. It identifies new developments in England which align the work of schools to powerful area strategies for tackling disadvantage, and argues that such developments offer a way of overcoming the limitations of full service and extended schools as usually understood.