Supporting “Slow Renewal”: Developments in Extended Education in High-Poverty Neighbourhoods in England

Abstract

This paper explores how a small but growing number of schools in England are gradually extending their roles to act as, what I term, agents of “slow renewal”: supporting long-term change in children’s complex family and community environments, through a series of strategically-aligned, small-scale, locally-bespoke actions, intentionally planned to bring about incremental change. An empirical illustration of one such school is presented and its core features explored via four core concepts: socio-ecological perspectives on children’s outcomes, soft-systems change, assets-based development, and liminal space. Through this, the paper contributes a set of integrated conceptual principles on which schools working to support slow renewal can act and which challenge the values of market-driven education systems more generally.