Meet the community: Extended Schools Manager - part 1

Today I interviewed Vanessa Forbes, the Extended Schools Manager for the secondary school that's been working with our artist-in-residence. Vanessa works at Sir Christopher Hatton school in Wellingborough. She's been Extended Schools Manager for three years.

Her job involves bringing the local community, school and families together to ensure access to activities for all. Vanessa is keen to help disadvantaged children, in particular, get access to what's going on.

'That may be through something simple like providing money for subs for Brownies or equipment to take part in cricket. We want to give every child the opportunity to be involved with community activities,' says Vanessa, who has a background in community development.

Vanessa works in partnership with other organisations and encourages new initiatives at her school, too.

As part of her job, Vanessa is involved with the Hemmingwell Action Group. With them, she discussed the artist-in-residence scheme on the Hemmingwell estate. 33% of Sir Chrisopher Hatton children come from the estate. (You can see the school itself from the Hemmingwell estate.)

'We're an extended school keen to work with the community. I'm part of the action group, because we all feel it's important we're 'singing from the same hymn sheet', as far as partnerships on the estate go,' explains Vanessa. 'We all want the Hemmingwell to knit together and become a strong community. The action group is great, because we want to take action, rather than just being a talking shop.'

More from Vanessa, Extended Schools Manager, in part 2 tomorrow!