Story: Michelle Cook
Rashida Hassanali has been the lead professional in extended services at our local schools for seven years. Her post has now been cut, and she leaves in March. Rashida spoke about her experience.
“I feel proud that I’ve been able to help create and develop opportunities for adults and children to achieve and contribute in all sorts of different ways! When so many of my extended schools colleagues across the city lost their jobs in 2011, the local schools had the foresight to continue funding my post, to enable this important work to continue.”
Women were at the heart of this work. Rashida was driven by enabling women to return to paid employment or make valuable contributions to the community. Women were empowered by this training and then took various posts, some in the community, and in schools as teaching assistants. “Our local schools are full of people who started out by accessing courses and learning in the schools they now work in!”
Burngreave’s extended services earned respect citywide and was chosen for many pilots and projects as there was confidence and trust. The government says that schools should be outward looking; they hold big budgets, employ a lot of people and have a responsibility to the community. There is concern this will now slip and they will become inward facing.
“I’ve been a strong link between the schools and other organisations for a long time and Fir Vale family of schools has been involved in lots of exciting and innovative projects as a result. I worry that this outward-facing approach will be lost without this post in the future, and that some of the individual schools will go back to serving their own school communities without looking at the wider context.”
Ofsted has said that extended services enabled outstanding, exemplary practice. Local schools currently work together to provide extended services so parents can access opportunities across Burngreave and Fir Vale. Parental involvement is now embedded in all the local schools, impacting on children’s motivation, attendance and achievement. Rashida is particularly proud of strands of work of her team, making massive progress with ESOL, family learning, employability programmes and citizenship through Women’s Voices.
“Giving women the confidence to speak with their own voices directly to those who need to listen to them is my greatest achievement, and it is those women I will always remember.” As new communities join us, we face new challenges and it remains important that this work continues to the highest standard. Rashida would like to thank everyone she has worked with! We would like to thank her and wish her luck in the future.
If you want to know more about these extended services please contact:
Firs Hill: Kath Hobson 0114 242 0109
St Catherine’s: Liz Smith or Tracey Samuels 0114 303 0381
Byron Wood: Smaira Sadique 0114 272 3624
Whiteways: Usha Blackham 0114 242 3169
Owlerbrook: Claire Shaw or Shamila Mudassar 0114 243 8611
Pye Bank: Zabeda Hussain 0114 276 0472
Fir Vale: Janet Lawson or Isabelle Galmes 0114 243 9391
If you’re part of a project or service and want to develop strategic work with the schools, please contact the relevant head teacher.