Eight top tips for making extracurricular work in school.

Eight top tips for making extracurricular work in school 

From coding clubs and poetry to outdoor pursuits, we round up the best ideas from our live chat on extracurricular groups in schools.

 Extra-curricular activities don’t have to sport-related – tap into the things students are interested in outside the classroom. Photograph: Alamy

It’s not just during classroom hours that young minds can be nurtured, and research suggests that pupils who participate in extracurricular activities perform better academically and socially.

But how can teachers make the most of their out-of-hours offering? We ran a live chat on the topic. We asked a group of experts questions such as: how can schools arrange opportunities without overburdening staff? How can we engage parents? Plenty of teachers shared their advice, tips and tricks – here’s a round up of their advice:

Experiment with activities

What kind of extracurricular activities are offered apart from sports? We have an eco-club, coding club, raspberry pi club, minecraft club, and a poetry club, among other things.

• Sarah Zaman teaches computing across the school at St Johns C of E primary school in Stockport.

I feel that a lot of extracurricular activities in schools tend to be PE-focused whether run by staff or outsourced but there need to be more activities for our children who are not interested in sport.

We have a variety of things in our school such as rocket building, maths magic, film, horticulture and a group that runs a business as part of business studies.

• Ian Dutton is a former teacher who qualified in 1977 and has been involved in school improvement since 2001.

Think about safeguarding

A large concern is safeguarding and any volunteers really need to have their DBS [criminal record check] registration. Many local clubs have this for their coaches who assist in schools periodically, but it can be expensive for schools to support DBS for coaches who are not contracted. There has to be a commitment from the senior leadership team to support both the links and the support for DBS.

• Ian Dutton

Get support from local businesses

rwood1

11 March 2015 5:29pm

One way of facilitating sessions is to draw upon support and skills from local business. Employee volunteering is big business. Utilising the skills and knowledge of volunteers provides students with aspirational role models, develops their confidence and self-esteem within a structured yet informal learning environment, whether curriculum linked or not and provides personal development for volunteers. Extra curricular activities provide students with development opportunities they may not have access to due to social deprivation and/or home circumstances; buildingcharacter and social capital which will make them more rounded, employable citizens. Contact a local Education Business Partnership for support developing links with business. At Tower Hamlets EBP, our business volunteers provide extensive support to our schools both during and after the school day.

Get senior students involved

The involvement of senior students is important for everyone – the older ones get good experience and the younger ones have good role models. This is particularly the case with clubs and societies, such as debating and public speaking, where qualifications [to run clubs] are not needed.

• Andrew Fleck is the headmaster of Sedbergh school and chairman of theHeadmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference North East division.

GarethPearson

11 March 2015 6:55pm

This comment has been chosen by Guardian staff because it contributes to the debate

In my experience, staff often do too many x-c activities and should stand back and give the older pupils the space to lead. We should all paddle a little less hard and allow the pupils to take up the strain. They will gain so much more.

Make sure you get the whole school involved

We encourage all staff to help with our out of school offering. Teaching assistants, cover supervisors, mentors etc have been significant in what we provide. Many are also local and happy to support in school closure periods, weekends and holidays. Also they don’t feel the “pressure of results” as intensely as teaching staff do.

• Ian Dutton

School culture is important

We start with a competitive culture in school and that can extend from team sports to heptathlon, darts etc. I cannot understand why the concept of “houses” is not more widely adopted – it gives a sense of place in the school and promotes healthy competition. Thereafter, it’s the people. As head, I appointed a director of sport and extracurricular activities at the first opportunity. It is a senior post and seen as such across the school. We consider extracurricular alongside teaching ability when appointing staff. We also stipulate that all staff must commit to activities on three days per week including Saturdays.

• Andrew Fleck 

Get teachers to run activities they love

Guardian contributor

susanwessels31

11 March 2015 7:34pm

This comment has been chosen by Guardian staff because it contributes to the debate

1. Allow teachers to do activities that they are pasionate about
2. Get senior pupils involved in leading activities for the younger years
3. Remember that their is so much more to our pupils than just the exam candidate and all the X-C activities allow them to develop their characters doing something they genuinely love.

Thank you.

I used to love running my history club for girls in years 7 to 9. We called in young historians and had a wonderful time every week. The girls chose topics and gave presentations, and then sometimes we had a themed party or other fun event eg medieval Christmas. It was fantastic. I went on to teach many of those year 7s A-level history. Some of them have just graduated with a history degree.

Source http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2015/mar/19/eight-top-tips-making-extracurricular-work-school