Enrichment

Enrichment opportunities at Turton and Edgworth

Intent

School is about way more than just reading and writing. At Turton Edgworth, we strongly believe, and prioritise, activities that extend children’s experiences and provide children with a rounded, culturally rich education.

They are often experiences that extend beyond the classroom and into the community. Also, teaching life skills and preparing our children for life in modern Britain; a diverse community full of opportunities and excitement. Our enrichment opportunities highlight the importance of inclusion and tolerance, cultural and community issues, teamwork and social responsibility.

Our aims are to

-Enable children to experience new things

-Help children develop new interests and talents

-Support children developing their character, resilience and independence

-Demonstrate the importance of keeping physically and mentally healthy

-Prepare children to be successful in the future

-Equip children to be responsible, respectful and active citizens

Implementation

We work towards these aims in many ways. Out IMPACT curriculum, especially PSHE and RE places an emphasis on the value of enrichment and provides many opportunities. Fundamental British Values has a high priority within the PSHE curriculum in IMPACT. Our worship plan focuses on inclusion, Modern Britain, Fundamental British Values, citizenship, careers, Youth Social Action and courageous advocacy.

We plan visits and visitors to school and deliver a careers week every year. We make deliberate decisions, even as early as in Reception, to display images of jobs that show people of different gender, race and those with a disability. We plan many extra curricular clubs and record attendance; including our most vulnerable children, those with SEND and our disadvantaged children. We have committed that every single child in our school will engage in a minimum of 4 enrichment activities every year. This is recorded in school by Mr Wheatley who leads in this area.

In RE we learn about world faiths. Rather than in isolation, we embed them. For example, instead of a unit just about Judaism, we learn about Special Books and extend this learning across multiple religions to include the Qur’an, Torah, etc.

Below are some of the activities we have delivered to the children. This is by no means an exhaustive list but it covers examples from every single year group in school.

Enrichment opportunities:

-Linking classroom project (BwD). We are one of the only schools in the LA that has 3 classes engaged with the project; including a KS1 class. This project enables the children to link with children in very different communities; albeit not more than a few miles away from their own

-Protecting Animals With Schools (PAWS). Every single class has the opportunity to work with the animals in school and learn from the PAWS team about the importance of loving and caring for animals. Also, the important responsibilities that comes with looking after a pet

-Autumn craft session with parents

-Reading buddy sessions (Rec & Y6 and Y1 & Y5)

-Thanksgiving workshop (American visitor)

-KS1 sporting events participation. We provide opportunities to represent the school even in KS1

-SEND representation. We gave the opportunity for a group of SEND children to represent the school. They made it all the way to the regional final!

-Multiple craft clubs; including Christmas Craft and enterprise for children in KS1

-Remembrance Day activities and visitors. Art competition

-Drawing club for LKS2

-Blackburn Rovers – linking maths to sporting activities

-Mental Health awareness day (PSHE)

-Growing and planting bulbs. Looking after the environment and sustaining food products

-Trips to: Manchester museum, residential (KS2), outdoor and adventurous trip (KS1), Eureka, using public transport, visit to meet Tim Peake and learn about life on the ISS,

-Lots of opportunities to cook and bake, including inviting families into school and donating food to charity. Also, “creating a 3 course meal”

-Charitable Youth Social Action: Children planning, preparing and delivering charitable actions to raise money and resources for many charities. Including (not exhaustive): Urban Outreach, UNICEF, Multibank, Tommy’s, Kidneys for Life, Down Syndrome Association, Comic Relief

-Ecology and the importance of sustainability and caring for our environment. Environmental Education Officers leading recycling project, marine biology/conservation (aquatic)

-Visits to important religious buildings (not just Christian)

-Choir that has performed at BwD homeless shelter, Blackburn Cathedral, and various other community events

-Emergency Services in school: Fire, Police and Ambulance

-Linked to Turton Local History Society and United Utilities

-Multiple extra-curricular clubs (not exhaustive): Lego, chess, drawing, board games, dance, choir, running, karate maths, sporting events, craft, debating, indoor sports, BMA band, music, musical instruments. Many of our clubs are invented, planned and led by our children!

-Geography fieldwork: Barlow Woods, interviewing visitors to Edgworth village, surveying responses. Writing letters to the President of Brazil to explain the importance of The Amazon Rainforest, how it is under threat and what we can try to do to help

-Careers week; including inviting the community to discuss their careers. Last year we were pleased to welcome 3 female engineers into school; inspiring the next generation

-SICO – campaign to promote walking

-Forest School

-Anglo-Saxon visitors, “The Sixteen” choir, visits from children in other schools, medieval musicians

-Reading plus lunch club

-Visit from a yoga instructor – health and wellbeing

-Bikeability and road safety

-Urban Outreach – harvest

-Visits to our local churches; including Remembrance art work

-Every single child visits a theatre

-Anti-bullying week, subject leader ambassadors

-Learning about other world faiths; including Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Methodism and Judaism/Semitism

-Cultural and contemporary topics such as ‘refugees’ which we link to world news including Ukraine. The flooding in Spain and spirit of volunteers who came to help

This is just a snap shot of the enrichment opportunities we are providing for the children here at Turton Edgworth. It is by no means exhaustive and staff and children are coming up with new ideas all the time. If you have a chance, please look at our school’s Facebook page (link on the home page) to see some of these enrichment activities in action.

Impact

These experiences enhance our IMPACT curriculum and also help children develop character, resilience and motivation. Having enrichment as such a high priority is also backed up in research by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), who found links between enrichment and higher attainment in reading and maths, in particular.