What are enrichment activities and why should you be doing them with your students?

Enrichment activities are opportunities for students to learn beyond the standard curriculum that fosters their social and emotional development. These activities build on students’ knowledge of core subjects to teach them valuable life skills, as well as improve their academic performance.

Schools worldwide are beginning to pay more attention to enrichment activities as new research shows they can give children a better start in life. A recent analysis by the Education Policy Institute found that such activities are linked to better long-term outcomes – young people are significantly more likely to attend higher education and find employment in their twenties when they have access to extracurricular activities as children.

If you’re thinking of expanding your syllabus, take a look at the best enrichment activities for your learners and what kind of benefits you can expect to see.

Why enrichment activities matter

Traditional school curricula often fall short when it comes to preparing children for adult life. They can cover the knowledge that young people need to navigate academia and employment, but they can overlook skills that students need to actually thrive and become well-rounded individuals.

By adding enriching activities to the syllabus, schools can fill some of these gaps in curricula and have a deeper impact on students. The long-term benefits of enrichment activities include:

• More natural opportunities for students to communicate and collaborate with their peers
• A break from the pressures of formal learning and possible stress relief
• Extra chances for students to explore interests and pick up hobbies
• A greater emphasis on soft skills like responsibility and time management
• A more level playing field for students whose families can’t afford extracurricular activities or after-school clubs

Now we’ve explored the benefits, let’s look at the best enrichment activities to try out in your school.

Arts & culture

The following activities get students to discover their creative sides and explore the world from different perspectives than their own.

• Creative projects: Have students make something based on what they’ve been learning about in recent classes. Perhaps they could try recipes from ancient cultures for History or design electrical circuits for Science and Technology. 
• Trips to galleries and museums: Many schools already arrange outings to nearby exhibitions to broaden their understanding of Art and History. Try looking for places with audiovisual and interactive displays to allow students to get more hands-on experiences.

Nature & adventure

Encouraging students to explore the world outside of the classroom builds their risk management skills, as they learn to assess challenges and make decisions.

• Orienteering: Organise students into small teams and have them compete to find the places on a map in the shortest time. You can leave items for them to collect or puzzles for them to solve at each location to make the challenge more complex.
• Habit exploration: Arrange trips to local nature spots or forest schools and have students study the animals and plants there. They can see in action the scientific and geographic processes they’ve learned about and feel more connected to their environment.

Sport

These enriching activities help students improve their emotional regulation by getting them to practise staying calm and focused during high-pressure moments.

• Korfball: As the world’s only mixed-gender sport, Korfball is a great activity to promote equality and teamwork among all your students. The game incorporates elements of both netball and basketball, so the rules should already be familiar to some.
• Obstacle courses: Develop your students’ problem-solving skills by setting them different indoor and outdoor obstacle courses. To give them more ownership over the activity by asking them to design their own obstacle courses for their classmates.

Life skills

Many subjects don’t give students the essential skills they need to succeed outside the classroom. Adding these to your syllabus can help prepare them and make them more self-sufficiet.

• Budgeting challenges: Ask students to decide the budget for different hypothetical scenarios in teams. They can learn how to manage household finances and develop a better understanding of how businesses operate.
• Maintenance and repairs: Show students how to look after common household items and fix them when they’re broken. Aside from learning new skills, lessons have a tangible benefit because everyone learns how to mend their clothes and repair toys and gadgets.

Civic engagement

Showing students that their voice matters can make them more active members of your school community and help them become more informed, socially-conscious individuals.

• Student-led awareness weeks: Ask your class to pick a cause that’s meaningful to them, whether that’s social issues or the environment, and plan activities to raise awareness. They may learn more about the topics or even become experts in them.
• Mock elections: Assign students roles in a real-life debate and have them discuss political issues. You can have everyone vote for their preferred candidate afterwards using a DIY ballot box and announce the results.

Enriching activities for a love of learning

Schools have come a long way since the traditional classrooms of the past. Now we recognise the need to look beyond the core subjects to invest in a child’s full development and set them up in adulthood.

Enrichment activities give students a chance to discover who they are outside of test scores and academic performance, which makes them more resilient and prepared for the world. More importantly, they upend traditional notions of education and instil a genuine love of learning in young people.

Further reading

Find other activities and strategies to boost students’ wellbeing. Read Astronomical activities for secondary school students, 4 ways to make your own greenhouse classes, and How to talk about volunteering with young students.