Community schools have long been accepted as an institutional mechanism for intervening in the relationship between poverty, poor educational outcomes, and limited life chances. At a time when public services are being retracted, and disadvantaged places are being increasingly left to struggle, community schools are poised to become more important…

The government in England is proposing that every school should offer extended services to children, families and communities. However, in the absence of agreed models of how such community-oriented schooling should operate, its form will depend on how it is understood by the education professionals and their partners in other agencies who have to…