How to Increase Access to Extra-Curricular Activities

Participation in non-academic activities can be profoundly important to young people’s lives, yet many young people still don’t have access to programs that inspire them. Helen O’Donnell explains how a new initiative is helping communities and schools overcome the barriers to accessing extra-curricular activities.

Launch of The Childrens University for Devon, Okehampton College. Northlew and Ashbury Pupils (l-r) Ewan Richards, Molly Everitt and Jessica Garrett with their new passports.

Here in the UK our education system is focused on a classroom curriculum. The success markers along the way—the tests, key stage milestones and exams—are all constantly reinforcing an emphasis on what happens within classrooms. But did you know that by the time a child turns 18, they will have spent only nine per cent of their waking lives in a classroom?¹

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      string(5690) "the whole child: where we value and promote development of emotional and social competencies, mental health and wellbeing alongside academic attainment.The UK education system is one of increasingly high stakes, low trust accountability for schools combined with funding decreasing in real terms.6 Cuts are forcing decisions on what schools can deliver for their young people and creating a high-pressure environment for pupils, teachers and leaders. Critically, given accountability incentives, the first thing to go is perceived ‘nice to haves’; those things not being focused on in measurement and data. Often these are activities which develop social and emotional skills and wellbeing, such as extra-curricular activities, pastoral care or beyond-curriculum learning. Head teachers have spoken to the FEA about the ‘need to be “brave” in order to continue to deliver what is best for young people, in spite of the system’. Added to this, cuts to early years and community services outside of schools are placing increasing pressure for schools to ‘fill the gap’ in extra-curricular and social and emotional development for young people.The Fair Education Alliance argues that this is resulting in a systemic gap in the development of essential social and emotional skills in young people, particularly impacting the most disadvantaged pupils.This is not an either/or between academic attainment and wellbeing. Social and emotional competencies are needed to be an effective learner and are essential as protective factors for good mental health. These skills are critical for young people to be happy, healthy, economically productive members of society. It is essential that they are valued alongside attainment. Moreover, these ‘soft skills’ are being recognised by industry as increasingly important for the future workforce as our business members attest. David Soanes, UK Country Head for UBS, writes in our Report Card that ‘In a society where what is needed for the world of work is undergoing rapid and dramatic change, businesses must contribute a great deal to the thinking and practice of personal and skills development for students. For all these reasons the work of the FEA remains more relevant than ever.’We continue to support the Skills Builder Framework, a shared language for skills development in schools, and are committed to highlighting, sharing and disseminating best practice in providing ‘rounded education’ across school networks and practitioners, so leaders can learn from each other and increase adoption of this type of approach to education. We will be working with the Every Child Included in Education campaign on this alongside their priorities to promote kindness and wellbeing and increase recognition of parents, carers and wider communities.Third, we need joined up support for all post-16 destination routes: to give every child a choice about their future. All young people should have the knowledge, skills and awareness to make the right decisions about their next step after completing compulsory education and have fair access to the many different routes, including further education, employment-based training or higher education. Currently the landscape around careers advice and guidance is complex. Circa £800m investment is made in widening participation and access to higher education and there are a wide range of different employability initiatives to help young people learn about the world of work. However, this advice is fragmented and comes from multiple different sources. It is also not consistently getting to every child in every school; there is a ‘lottery’ effect of whether employers/universities happen to be working with schools in that area. Importantly, advice on non-HE routes (e.g. further education, technical education or apprenticeship routes) have been significantly less prominent.In this last year, we welcomed government policy for a dedicated careers leader in every school. However, there has been concern about the practicality of this, given the complexity described above, coupled with stretched capacity in schools. Schools and careers advisors are being asked to navigate and provide support to students on an ever-changing world of work and the endless education/career pathways available to young people, on top of an already significant workload. In this context, young people, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, are not being equipped with the awareness of opportunities available to them beyond school or the tools to help them reach those destinations – with the result that those from disadvantaged backgrounds are still six times as likely to be recorded as not in education, training or employment after age 16.We want to see more collaboration between employers and post-16 education providers in the way they provide information to schools about the range of options available and how they are interconnected. Best practice in this area has been set out by the eight Gatsby benchmarks,7 and we are committed enabling schools and leaders to implement this and learn from each other. In this way we want to ensure every child gets consistent quality advice and guidance no matter which school they attend or which area they live in.These are priorities not just for secondary schools, but right across education, from early years provision through to leavers at 18. They will be the focus areas for our projects over the coming year, but we cannot do this alone. We are committed to working to achieve this vision but we need a shared commitment as"
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Inclusion

Imagining the Closing of the Gap

4 Dec 2018

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Leadership Briefing 9.07(103)"
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      string(3327) "innovation across thecurriculum.Recommendations: ■ OfSTED should not designate a school as being ‘outstanding’ without evidence of an excellentcultural and creative education. A lack of cultural and creative opportunities within the curriculumand beyond should be reported on and be raised as a matter of concern.Leadership BriefingLeadership Briefing – www.teachingtimes.comReports Summaries – a weeklyservice of essential summaries,in-depth reports and criticalanalysis that’s new and relevantto education, linked to originalsource documents. ■ The Arts Council England target of 50% schools having an ArtsMark award should besupported and encouraged by OfSTED and the Department for Education. An arts or mediasubject should be included in the English Baccalaureate, improving the visibility of the artsand increasing incentives for young people to combine science and arts subjects at KeyStage 4. ■ The Ofsted inspection framework should require schools to provide an embedded culturaleducation for all children up to the age of 16, allowing governors, parents and trustees tohold headteachers responsible for this provision. ■ Government should provide an Arts and Culture Pupil Premium to match the current £45mPE/Sport premium so as to increase the choices for our most disadvantaged and culturallydisenfranchised children. ■ The DfE and OfSTED must ensure that all children up to the age of 16 receive a culturaleducation in order to ensure their life-long engagement and enjoyment as audiences andmakers of our creative and cultural world. In addition, policymakers and educators shoulddo their utmost to give young people at all stages of the education system exposure to themulti-disciplinary mix of science, technology, arts, humanities and enterprise that underpinscreative success in the UK. ■ · The DfE, BIS and DCMS should work with the Creative Industries Federation to develop anational grid of providers to ensure that all children can freely access and learn from localopportunities for artistic and creative extra-curricular activities. ■ Government must ensure that appropriate access to training for Creative and CulturalIndustries programmes at both undergraduate and postgraduate level ■ There should be a national Creative Apprenticeship Scheme, delivered by a single combinedSector Skills Council covering the Cultural and Creative Industries and linked to the NationalPlan, and with more detailed and robust data on pipeline supply of creative talent. Thisscheme would rationalise and scale up existing initiatives by the Department for Business,Innovation & Skills, Arts Council England and current sector skills councils. ■ DfE and BIS must ensure that there is adequate careers advice available to those interestedin pursuing a career in the Cultural and Creative Industries. The new careers and enterprisecompany recently announced by the Department for Education must work together withthe Cultural and Creative Industries to support teachers and careers advisors in providingguidance and inspiration to young people.WEB LINKEnriching Britain: Culture, Creativity and Growthhttp://www2.warwick.ac.uk/research/warwickcommission/futureculture/finalreport/enriching_britain_-_culture_creativity_and_growth.pdf"
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Leadership

Enriching Britain: Culture, Creativity and Growth

19 Feb 2015

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      string(5673) "contributors given equivalent status.Delaware Community Primary School in Cornwall led the creation of an on-site learningand community centre for the rural locality it serves. The Delaware Community LearningCentre houses a children’s centre with a pre-school and adult learning complex. Theround the clock centre hosts anti-natal and post-natal checks, health visitor and babyweigh-in clinics, social groups and an advice centre as well as a jobseekers’ centre andtraining in parenting skills. It also hosts a community café and public access computers,WiFi and three rooms available for hire for events, club meetings and so on It offers roundthe clock facilities.Garforth Community College’s trust-owned uniform and equipment shop also servedas an ICT training hub for the community’s learning platform. The community usedthe platform to access information, for example about council or health services. Byundergoing training in its effective use parents developed their own IT and internetskills and were consequently better able to support their own learning and that of theirchildren.Activity FiveSpeculate to nurture community capital – making resources available for community activitiesand new community capacity.With no obvious direct or indirect payback this is an act of faith from which most of thevalue and new capacity escapes into the community.Coleshill Heath Primary School offered its facilities for community use after research withthe West Midlands Police revealed an increase in antisocial behaviour during INSET days.Pupils now have the opportunity to take part in dance, sport and other sessions deliveredby local coaches and clubs.George Green’s Secondary School hosts Café Vert, a not-for-profit social enterprisescheme providing a vocational training café used by pupils, their families and by localbusinesses as a catering service. The Café, designed by young people in collaboration withan architect, is a venue for a range of in-school, special education needs and disabilities(SEND), youth service, community and regional activities.At the Westwood Secondary School a member of the leadership team has responsibilityfor community development and cohesion in order to ensure that the theme is embeddedin the school’s curricular and extra-curricular planning. The school provided facilities tocreate a school-based youth service and, in an illustration of how the five tasks oftenoverlap, community police officers who had a permanent office on site (Task 5) led onwhole school events and extra-curricular activities (Task �).Measures of ValueThe third corner of the Public Value Triangle is measurement of value, a problematic areafor Public Value. Although it is too reductive to judge the wider community effort of PVleaders simply by its impact on test scores, systematic measures for the wider social valuethe leaders believe is important are not readily available . It leaves them struggling toanswer whether the effort is worth the product, particularly when activity moves along thespectrum and further from the classroom.For the past two decades central government has focussed school accountabilityon the easy-to-measure, nationally validated, simple-to-report tests which have the‘advantage’ of ready compilation into league tables while Ofsted judgements havebecome ever more dependent on attainment scores. Against that background, intrinsicallyHow do you count thenumber of young people thatyou’ve ‘saved’ as a result oflocal knowledge and closepartnership with socialservices? How do you countthe number of young peoplewho haven’t been out in thestreets stabbing each otherbecause you’ve providedother things for them to do?Stella Bailey, Director forExtended Services, GeorgeGreen’s Secondary Schoolwww.teachingtimes.com n Vol 3.2Education Every Child Journal73personal and often moral or ethical personal measures struggle for airspace.The PV leaders are unequivocal in their acceptance or at least tolerance of nationalstandards. If they are not seen to be succeeding by those measures they have no mandatefor anything more extensive. Like many other schools they need help measuring whatthey want to understand about the wider outcomes of their work. The alternative is thatthey, along with the agencies and communities to which they want to be responsible,will be comparing apples and pears in terms of their inputs, outputs, achievements andprocesses endlessly and (despite the metaphor) fruitlessly.The PV schools are beginning to reveal the kind of indicators which could be used bydistinguishing between process outcomes (what we have done and how well we havedone it) and impact outcomes (the difference we have made for young people and thecommunity). Impact outcomes included the schools’ performance by student attainment.They also included improved attendance levels; better behaviour both inside and – no lessimportantly – outside the school; lower rates or anti-social behaviour in their immediatelocality; higher levels of students leaving education to enter employment or training, andreductions in teenage pregnancy. Even accreditation of staff learning and developmenthas been added to the positive indicators which the PV schools have been able toassociate with their wider activity.In broad terms, process outcomes are evident when schools can report that activitiesare in place, parents and communities are engaged and there is a reasonable expectationthat, more or less directly, this will lead to impact outcomes for young people. Many ofthe schools rely on narratives for"
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Special Needs

From the margins into the mainstream

1 Oct 2012

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      string(391) "... into post-compulsory education.Secondly, it sets out that there are many interventions where the evidence is promising butnot compelling. There is some evidence that extra-curricular activities and mentoring improvesattainment by increasing self-confidence. However, the evidence is not conclusive and furtherresearch is needed before it can be recommended ..."
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      string(5632) "delivery are flexible enough to enable them to work beyondthe school and home and make use of other settings and minimise drop-out.The evidence also highlights the need for better information and access to appropriatesupport and advice for parents. This is particularly true where parents have come from poorerbackgrounds or have not had a positive experience of education and lack the skills to help theirchild with homework. It may also be that ‘negative attitudes’ reflect a lack of confidence or feelingintimidated by a ‘middle-class ethos’ that parents do not relate to. Finally, poorer children andparents may not be aware of the full range of possibilities open to them or understand the routesthat need to be taken to secure certain occupations or routes into post-compulsory education.Secondly, it sets out that there are many interventions where the evidence is promising butnot compelling. There is some evidence that extra-curricular activities and mentoring improvesattainment by increasing self-confidence. However, the evidence is not conclusive and furtherresearch is needed before it can be recommended that these programmes are rolled out.Thirdly, it sets out that there are many interventions currently in use which arenot supported by the evidence and which, despite often vested interests or anecdotal‘evidence’ ought not to be pursued as a means of raising attainment. For example, there isno evidence that interventions based on changing attitudeto learning yields improved outcomes in attainment. Andone myth that needs to be scotched is that paid workduring term-time has a negative impact on children’sattainment.It should be noted that many things done inschools may well be being done for reasons other thanraising attainment (such as improving behaviour,addressing bullying etc). It is important to recognisethis and no-one would suggest that suchinitiatives should not be valued in their ownright. However, it is also important to note thatwhere claims are made about these initiativesbeing successful in raising attainment, theyare not supported by the evidence. So it isimportant to be careful with such claims.Vol 3.2 n www.teachingtimes.comEducationEvery Child Journal54The overarching conclusion from our programme of work is that there is a real need fora commitment to placing high quality evidence at the heart of the development of policyand practice and to ongoing evaluation once rolled out. Addressing the rather gloomyrealities in respect of social mobility and education will clearly be a long term challenge. Butfocussing on what we know works, rather than what some charismatic figures think does,is surely the best way of using limited funds in difficult economic times to seek to ensureyoung people are given the best chance to achieve their true potential.There is a silver lining in this rather dark cloud. The use of public funds are underincreasing scrutiny and there is an increasing focus in many areas of public policy ondemonstrating that the resources available have the best possible impact. This provides anopportunity and, indeed, the current economic climate may be a useful ally in this regardin ensuring that – as Nick Clegg said at the Sutton Trust’s Social Mobility summit earlierthis year – ‘the money follows the evidence’. This is certainly how he envisages the PupilPremium – funds given to schools to raise attainment of the poorest children – being spent.The Pupil Premium Toolkit sets out a broader range of initiatives which are evidenced4.ConclusionIt is clear that if we are to narrow the attainment gap, we must make sure that futureeducational initiatives should not simply be implemented on the basis of influentialpoliticians’, officials’, or (head) teachers’ preferences or beliefs. They should instead bedeveloped in light of the best evidence available so that policy-makers and teachers canput together programmes that really work. If this does not happen, it would seem at best,very likely that the attainment gap will not be reduced and, at worst, widen. If our educationsystem needs one revolution, I’d suggest it was this.examples of compelling evidence for parenting interventionsHome instruction for parents of pre-school youngsters. This is a US programme which aims to increase parentalinvolvement and enhance school readiness for children aged between 3 and 5. Parents work with their child for 20 minutesper day using a curriculum of role playing with weekly activity packs including storybooks and equipment for studying mathsand science. The curriculum is designed to encourage the development of language , problem solving, logical thinking andphysical and emotional and social skills. The main findings were that it:produced a more enriched home environment (reading materials etc)resulted in a significantly higher level of parenting ‘self-efficacy’produced maths scores significantly higher than for the control group (although it did not have the same impact onreading scores)The Houston parent-child development centre project was a two-year US project targeting Mexican-American parents. Itstarted when children were aged one and aimed to improve school ability via a series of home visits, family workshops andeducation[focused classes for parents about child development and child care. Results showed that:At age two and three children demonstrate significantly better mental development (based on IQ measures)than thecontrol sample and stayed at or near national average while the control group’s scores fell on average by eight points.The"
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Special Needs

Narrowing the attainment gap

1 Oct 2012