WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY....
ENSURING SCHOOL ENRICHMENT REACHES EVERY CHILD
Comment by RACHEL HAWKER, Chief of Education at Rocksteady Music School
T
he DfE’s new Enrichment Framework provides eight benchmarks to help schools evaluate the effectiveness of their enrichment provision. While the framework rightly recognises the importance of offering high-quality enrichment activities in and of themselves, it also presents a valuable opportunity for schools to rethink how they measure success.
For years, conversations around enrichment have largely focused on the breadth of activities on offer. As schools begin working with the new framework, there’s a chance to engage even more children by asking who those opportunities are reaching. Research suggests there is a gap between provision of enrichment and participation. Although nearly all schools (98%) offered at least one extracurricular activity during the 2024/25 academic year, around three in 10 pupils did not take part (28%), which rose to more than half (55%) at special schools. As a former peripatetic music teacher, I have seen first-hand the progress schools have made over the years in expanding their enrichment offerings. The next challenge is understanding who those opportunities are reaching and which pupils still feel that those activities are not for them.
Participation data can add real depth to what attendance figures already show, revealing valuable patterns about which pupils are engaging regularly, which try activities but do not return, and which do not opt in at all.
During my teaching years I saw that for many pupils, the main barrier was not a lack of interest, but a feeling of uncertainty. The way an activity is presented, whether a child feels comfortable trying something new, and whether success feels achievable can all influence whether they get involved.
Designing enrichment with participation in mind is key to engaging more pupils. Activities that welcome pupils of all abilities, require no previous experience and encourage children to learn alongside their peers are often more successful at engaging those who might otherwise opt out.
Music provides one example of this. Through group-based music lessons, like those I used to teach, children can learn an instrument together in a team environment without the pressure of individual assessment. The same principle can be applied across sport, drama, debating, creative arts and many other forms of enrichment. The framework also encourages schools to think about when enrichment is delivered, and how timing can open things up for more families. While before and after-school activities remain important, embedding opportunities within the school timetable can encourage wider participation by introducing new experiences in a familiar environment and removing barriers like transport and family work commitments.
As schools begin embedding the Enrichment Framework, the opportunity is not simply to expand the number of activities available, but to ensure they are reaching the pupils who stand to benefit from them most. When more children feel confident enough to participate, they can develop the skills that support them both in and beyond the classroom.
26
www.education-today.co.uk CIVIC
ENGAGEMENT: HIGH-IMPACT ENRICHMENT AT LOW COST
Comment by KEREN MITCHELL Co-Founder of SuperKind
T
he Government’s recently published enrichment benchmarks recognise that education must prepare young people not only to succeed academically, but also to participate actively in the world around them. Among the areas identified is civic engagement: volunteering, contributing to communities and developing as active citizens.
Civic engagement offers schools an unusually strong return on investment. It can develop skills, confidence, belonging and a lasting sense of social responsibility at a time when government policy is placing renewed emphasis on these attributes. Crucially, it can also be simple and inexpensive to deliver.
Social action can develop key skills, strengthen belonging and increase young people’s sense of agency. Through volunteering, campaigning, fundraising and community projects, pupils experience what it means to take responsibility, organise collectively and see that participation can produce results.
Through our work with thousands of schools at SuperKind, we see these effects first-hand. Nine in 10 pupils who completed our programme said they felt empowered to change issues they cared about. The potential return extends beyond the activity itself. Civic action supports several of the Government’s wider priorities for schools, including personal development, inclusion, pupil engagement and attendance. The emerging Pupil Engagement Framework will ask schools to pay closer attention to belonging, relationships and how much pupils value school, while government-backed attendance guidance identifies a culture of community and belonging as an important part of re-engaging pupils. Giving young people a meaningful role within their school and community can help create precisely that sense of connection.
This matters even more as the Government seeks to extend voting rights to 16- and 17-year-olds. If young people are to be given a greater formal role in shaping society, schools must help prepare them for it. The Government has also committed to making citizenship compulsory in primary schools, while the existing secondary curriculum already asks pupils to prepare to play a full and active part in society.
Much of this cannot be learnt passively from behind a desk. Social action provides the practical experience through which those ambitions become real. The challenge is capacity. School budgets are already under severe pressure, and many leaders have questioned how they can deliver a broader enrichment offer without more staff, time or money.
Here, civic action has another advantage: it can be remarkably inexpensive. While some enrichment activities require specialist staff, facilities, equipment or transport, civic action can often be delivered using resources schools already have.
Schools need not design provision from scratch. The guidance emphasises the value of delivering enrichment with external partners and a growing number of organisations, including SuperKind, offer structured resources, CPD and programmes that reduce planning demands on staff and help ensure civic action is meaningful for the pupils taking part. For schools under pressure to do more with less, civic engagement offers unusually strong value: it is affordable and practical to deliver while supporting pupil development, community cohesion and educational priorities.
September 2026
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