Enrichment

Intent of the enrichment provision on a Friday afternoon

The purpose of enrichment at Reach Academy is to introduce students to topics and opportunities that they don’t have access to as part of the academic curriculum. Enrichment intends to give students aspirations beyond their existing ones and the varied enrichment offer helps to foster a love of learning outside the curriculum, as it is a chance for us to model the joy of academic pursuits and activities. Enrichment is run in phase 2 and phase 3 across phase. This provides the additional opportunity for pupils across years 3-5 and years 6-8 to mix allowing the older students to take leadership roles within their chosen groups and aid transition. In keeping with the gradual increase in accountability as pupils grow older, all pupils in phase 2 will earn enrichment once a week whereas in Phase 3, enrichment also acts as a reward for academic achievements and positive behaviour as it is only available to those students achieving a score of above 75 on their weekly payslip. This score was selected as a score achievable with perfect attendance each week, emphasising the need for great attendance and providing a slot each week to catch up on key work missed.

Enrichment Curriculum Sequencing

We have a variety of enrichment options available in Phase 2 and 3 allowing pupils to select options outside of the confines of the normal curriculum in the hope of fostering a love of learning outside of the curriculum and a drive to enjoy additional hobbies and pursuits. Students are given the chance to state their three preferred options at the beginning of the year, during a session which reminds them of the purpose of enrichment and introduces them to the options available to them that year. 

We offer choices that deepen the learning offered in academic subjects or provide access to new disciplines, such as Science Club, Coding and Politics. These options offer students the opportunity for further discussion of topics that they see in the curriculum, and give additional time to practical experiments and deeper conversations or experience subjects they wish to gain a deeper understanding of. We also ensure that there are a number of different sports options available to encourage healthy living and varied forms of exercise. Pupils are encouraged to take one option from sport and one other option alongside any third choice.

In Phase 2, pupils participate in one enrichment activity for a half-term (6/7 weeks). The activities remain the same for the second half-term, but pupils are encouraged to choose a different option. Every term, the choices on offer change. This provides our pupils with plenty of opportunities to explore new activities.

We also have a variety of ad hoc events as part of enrichment. In particular these include the Jack Petchey award, Speak Out Challenge, McClaren Day, and Mock Trial.  The Jack Petchey award is allocated to a student every month based on nominations made by teachers and their peers. This award gives the student £300 with which they can fund something of their choice for the school - previous winners have chosen to purchase new sports equipment, or to take their form on a team bonding bowling trip. Our Y10 students take part in the Speak Out Challenge every year - this is a day off timetable, facilitated by an external provider. During the day students learn how to give a speech confidently, and are given the chance to work on a speech to present something that matters to them. The winning students continue into a local competition, and have the potential to continue to the national rounds. 

Our Year 3, Year 4 and Year 5 pupils are also given the opportunity to be part of the school performance. They use enrichment sessions to focus on musical theatre and dance. 

Impact of our Enrichment Programme

Our enrichment program is not formally assessed, but each of the enrichment options builds towards a final project or outcome seen in the curriculum plans above. For example, in our Art enrichment session students are given the opportunity to work on creating their own illustrated story book. They will spend the cycle working on different aspects of this, before presenting their final creation to other students in the group. Similarly, in our World Board Games option, students are introduced to a different board game from around the world in each session, before designing and creating their own board game in the final two weeks and presenting this to other students in the group. We want students to see the impact of their time in enrichment by producing a final piece that reflects the amount they have learned in the last 10 weeks and applying that to create something they can be proud of.