What’s the point of Enrichment in schools?

[Fusedspur]

My children’s school has enrichment week and on the face of it there are lots of interesting things to do but actually, lots of the kids hate the break in the routines. What is the point of it?

Enrichment week annoys me frankly. It just emphasises the differences between the haves and the have nots. We have a choice of programmes from 6 day trips to London, Paris, Barcelona and Berlin, to a week surfing in Cornwall, or bikepacking in Wales, to board games in a classroom or learn how to run a nail salon. The exact people you think will go on whatever programme are exactly the people who go. The trips are anything from £900 for the Paris one this year to free for how to run a nail salon.

My child is going on one of the expensive trips. It’s not a stretch for us and I’m not complaining because we’re being left out. We’re very much in. But she has friends who are really upset because they’re stuck at school all week playing board games because it’s free and it’s all their parents can afford. I’m grateful we can do it and it was a place dd really wanted to go, and it’s nice she’s getting to do it with all her friends.

But it irritates me a lot that it’s so tone deaf. It’s not a well off area. Something more ordinary but more widely available to all students would be better. This is normal state school in a rural farming community. This year they have even made transition week for year 6s a thing parents have to pay for. It’s £200 for the week if your child wants to go to transition week, which no doubt is going to prevent the children who probably most need to go to transition week from going. Don’t get me started on that. 😩

That sounds like an awfully thought through enrichment week and I'm shocked they are allowed to charge for transition week. I don't think that is an enrichment week problem but more so a school leadership problem

Depends how it's run and when.

DD had it in secondary for 4 years, once a week, they could choose a subject and it was across all year groups, it changed after the February half-term, so around 1/2 year per topic.
She did Latin, vlogging, Roman and Greek history, astrology, first aid, movie club.
They also had several arts and language clubs, creative writing, sports, music, philosophy, media, current affairs discussions.

She liked it as it meant they could try something new without the pressure to get grades or continuing it. Plus she liked the mix between 11 and 18 year olds.

In Y11 they started enrichment in one week beginning of July, so after the Y11 and 13s were gone.
That was mainly day trips, workshops, team building games. As DD was in Y11 then, she "missed" but based on what people from younger years said, it wasn't the most existing but a good way to destress from exams as the school did all their year-end tests between May and July.

It’s pretty obvious, the point of it is so children can have experiences outside of the normal curriculum. Surely you’re not against that??

I suppose I didn’t phrase the original post well. How do you measure the success of enrichment? Clearly there will be plenty of kids who are thrilled to have a break from the monotony but there’s a significant cohort who loathe forced “enjoyment” and the blurring of the usual rules and routine. They REALLY struggle with it. So for those kids specifically what’s the point?

As a parent why would you have an issue with any of these things? Surely you understand what the point is?

As a parent I don’t have an issue with it per se. I asked what the point of it is. I fully accept that loads of kids love this sort of thing but a significant number hate the routine changes. I suppose it’s a bit like Sports Day. One of my kids practices for months, the other has a scheduled virus…

Used to drive me up the wall as parents were expected to drive the kids to all these activities.

Sometimes kids just need to accept they have to do things they don’t want to though, that’s a basic part of life. I’m not sure why any parent would want to avoid that side of parenting.

For some kids they have the capacity to just suck it up. For others it’s all too much. I think some acknowledgment of that would go a long way.

Do you actually mean ‘my kid hates the break in routine’ and based on that are trying to suggest the whole thing is pointless?

No, I didn’t say that.

I asked what the point was - as in, how does the school decide if it’s actually been worthwhile? How is that measured? Because depending on who you ask it’s ace or crap! But they don’t seem to ask the kids who really struggle - it’s just a “well it’s a one off and you’ll enjoy it so get on the bus.” The reality can be different.

Schools literally can’t win.

Nothing will ever be perfect for every child.

Honestly I’m not saying that.

Last week was hideous and if there had been a second option, like “spend time in learning support” or “can stay in form and do XYZ” then my boy would have absolutely taken that. It’s just having an option that’s all. Because otherwise literally what’s the point if the child is hating every second of it, kicking off at home and is a ball of anxiety!

I'd keep him at home then.

Are you really asking what the point of a 'Careers Day' is? That's a pretty important thing for students to get involved in.

Unless there is a specific issue then children and young people should be able to cope with a break in the routine. Otherwise they'll struggle in the real world.

That’s what I ended up doing, and according to WhatsApp loads of other parents of wonky kids did the same. Various excuses, scheduled viruses etc. School got shitty about it, which was a shame.

Evidently these are kids who will struggle in the real world! That rather begs the question of how appropriate or successful some enrichment is likely to be! That’s what I’m asking!

What do you expect your child to do after school? What exactly about the career fair was so bad? Does the school already put reasonable adjustments in place for your child?

I can imagine the backlash a school could have if a group of children are seen to be excluded from a careers fair.

You could give constructive feedback to the school as to what might work better as ‘enrichment’ for children like yours instead of wishing it away for everybody.

So it is ‘my child struggled therefore the school is wrong’.

What the school did sounds great and will have been a lot of hard work to organise.

But surely there will also be a significant number of kids who hate the routine of school, aren’t academic etc & so a week of enrichment activities gives them a break & opportunity to shine or let loose when they can’t for the other 30+ weeks a year?

I get that your kid & some others don’t enjoy it but school can’t suit every child every lesson/day/week & as kids & eventually adults we have to learn to participate in the things we don’t enjoy as much.

The child I’m thinking of - I expect he will be an antisocial computer programmer like his Dad.

And have you fed this back?
Or just decided it should all be scrapped? Thigs likes Careers Days are not done on a whim and take a lot of organising. You should be asking how you can support your child to get the most out of it.

I didn’t say the school was “wrong.” I asked how success of these activities is measured.