After-school clubs to give marriage advice

Schools are to offer marriage guidance counselling under plans to turn them into "hubs" for family services.

The Government is pumping £75 million into enabling London schools to open every day from 8am to 6pm, offering everything from childcare and homework clubs to parenting classes.

The "extended schools scheme" will see all primaries and secondaries offering what officials call "Kelly hours" - named after Education Secretary Ruth Kelly - by 2010. But the initiative was actually begun by Ms Kelly's predecessor, Estelle Morris.

It comes after a period in which the embattled Ms Kelly has been forced to deny claims that Tony Blair has tightened his grip on her department by appointing his education adviser Andrew Adonis as junior schools minister. Today, Ms Kelly announced how £680 million will be split among local authorities to help schools prepare for longer opening hours .

London gets the largest share, while the South-East will get ?69 million between 2005 and 2008.

The main aim is to encourage more parents to go out to work by offering them childcare links to their local schools, either on the same premises or by childminders working for the school. The money will also pay for breakfast and after school clubs and will enable poorer families to access school facilities such as computers, sports pitches, art studios and adult education classes.

A prospectus setting out the policy in detail also reveals that the Government wants the schools effectively to train future generations of parents. All extended schools will have to offer parent classes. The prospectus says: "Our vision is that extended schools will serve as a hub for services for parents.

"In time, we anticipate that many extended schools will want to broaden the range of services available to parents, for example targeted services such as support for parents of children with behavioural difficulties or support for parents experiencing relationship difficulties."

Staff, including teachers, will have to be "alert to the needs of parents" in a massive expansion of what Ms Kelly calls "parent power".

The prospectus claims that the policy should not add to teachers' workload but unions are sceptical.

Launching the policy at Millfields Community School in Hackney, Ms Kelly admitted that providing extended services "will be challenging for some schools."

But she added: "Breakfast and after school clubs, high quality childcare, inputs from specialist services, parent support programmes and a good range of beyond-the-classroom activities all contribute to improving children's skills, confidence, behaviour, health and achievement."