To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills when the charitable company ContinYou is expected to make its database of supplementary schools available for inspection; what definition ContinYou uses to decide whether an organisation is a supplementary school; which supplementary schools in London have been involved with ContinYou’s quality assessment pilot scheme; and whether his Department plans to expand the quality assessment as a way of encouraging supplementary schools to take part in statutory projects. (94379)

[holding answer 16 October 2006]: ContinYou currently has a small database of supplementary schools and lead contacts. It numbers about 800 separate entries. There are plans to develop the database both in terms of its size and functionality to ensure that the future database contains a range of core data that can be made available on-line and that enables users to search for schools by location, type, and community served.

ContinYou deem an organisation to be a supplementary school when it provides taught lessons outside of school hours that supplement or complement its students' mainstream education. Those lessons can be additional tuition on national curriculum subjects (and usually Maths, English, Science and ICT), but can also include community language lessons and cultural and heritage studies. Some supplementary schools may also offer religious tuition. Others offer a much wider range of activities including sports and leisure, creative activities, trips and excursions, and parental learning and support.

The following supplementary schools were involved in piloting the Quality Framework for Supplementary Schools. The pilot included 14 schools from 6 local authorities. The schools were:

Asian Resource Centre (Greenwich)

Hindu Youth Association (Greenwich)

Somali and Somaliland Lewisham Community (Lewisham)

British Somali Community—South Camden Community Supplementary School (Camden)

Esforal (Camden)

Mandela Supplementary School (Camden)

Moroccan Supplementary School (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea)

Azza Supplementary School (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea)

Somali Mothers and Children’s Organisation Supplementary School (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea)

Suleymaniye Turkish Boarding School (Hackney)

Chinese Independent School of Tower Hamlets (Tower Hamlets)

Culloden Bangladeshi Parents Association (Tower Hamlets)

Stepney Dynamic Youth (Tower Hamlets)

Stifford TJRS-TRA Community Centre (Tower Hamlets)

The Department welcomes the development of the Quality Framework for Supplementary Schools as a way of supporting supplementary schools to improve their teaching and practices, of recognising their effort and achievements, and of encouraging both supplementary and mainstream schools to work together more effectively. ContinYou is currently considering how it can develop its work around the Quality Framework for Supplementary Schools.