Thinktank calls for a new ringfenced grant to help schools provide enrichment programmes.

• Almost half of young people from wealthiest areas attend clubs outside of school compared to only a quarter of young people from the poorest areas, and wealthier children are almost three times more likely to sing in a choir or play in a band.
• Young people in the South East are twice as likely to play music outside of school than those in the North East, and 40% more likely to participate in dance.
• This matters because the Education Endowment Foundation finds participating in the arts – like dance, drama, music – can lead to up to 3 months academic progress, particularly for writing and maths.
• New ‘Enrichment Premium’ should be allocated to all schools to fund sport, music, drama, and art, at an estimated cost of £2 billion, alongside recruitment of an army of parent volunteers to support in schools.

Too many poorer pupils miss out on after-school activities that their wealthier peers benefit from because teachers lack the time and funding needed to run them. This is the conclusion of new Onward research urging ministers to address the huge disparity between the opportunities afforded to wealthier and poorer pupils.

Intervention is needed to address the disadvantage gap in attainment and softer skills that are key to work readiness, something extracurricular activities are proven to improve. Despite this, after school clubs are predominantly the preserve of wealthier pupils who are more likely to attend clubs at school, play musical instruments and do more than 30 minutes of sport a day.

This new research from Onward identifies the three main reasons why more schools are not able to offer out-of-hours enrichment opportunities for young people:

• Funding: School budgets are stretched and, despite the Government making extra funding available for schools last year, real-term spending per pupil is falling. Typically, when there is money to spare it is used to fill holes in budgets not spent on costly after-school activities.
• Timing: According to Teacher Tapp 97% of fee-paying schools end compulsory lessons at 3.15pm, compared to just 71% of state schools in the least affluent parts of the country. State school teachers already work long hours and many cannot extend the school day to offer after-hours programmes for pupils. Requiring them to do so would likely exacerbate the teacher retention crisis.
• Targeting: Too often, enrichment programmes are not used by those who would benefit from them because disadvantaged pupils are less likely to engage voluntarily in extracurricular activities.

Onward is setting out four key proposals to close the gap between extracurricular opportunities offered to the wealthiest and poorest while minimising the cost to the Treasury and teachers’ time.

• A ring-fenced enrichment premium for state schools to facilitate partnerships with charities, civic and community groups such as the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award to deliver after-school activities. Working on the assumption that pupils do three 40-minute enrichment sessions per week, we propose a premium of £234 per pupil per year, or £1.9 billion in total per year. This is significantly less than previous proposals and could be partly paid for by repurposing the PE and Sport Premium and harnessing the potential underspend from the National Tutoring Programme.
• Recommend that all schools add two hours to the school week to allow time for enrichment. Many leading multi-academy trusts achieve this without significant additions to teachers’ working hours through efficient planning of teachers’ time tables. New guidance should help schools to do this, including supporting schools to find new ways to reduce teacher time spent outside of lessons .
• Call for an army of parents to help provide enrichment opportunities. UK parents are far less engaged in their children’s schooling than elsewhere. Just 6% volunteer to help with physical or extracurricular activities, compared to 23% in the USA. Ministers could support this by extending the rights of individuals to request ‘reasonable time off’ to volunteer.
• Open up school facilities to communities. Two in five sports facilities are on school sites, and 40% of these are not open to the public. This means that schools do not benefit financially from their assets. Schools should open up their facilities to paying clubs to raise funds for after-school enrichment.

The Government faces huge fiscal pressures, but children were the hardest hit by the pandemic and now their futures deserve to be prioritised. If the Government is serious about harnessing education to change lives then it must be backed up with tangible and ambitious action.

Adam Hawksbee, Interim Director at Onward, said:

“After school enrichment is a proven way to unlock potential in young people. But for too many pupils, sport, drama, dance, and art are out of reach – especially young people from poorer families, and those in the North.

“Any Government serious about levelling up needs to invest in enrichment to boost opportunity. Our paper sets out practical steps for delivery – including a new school enrichment premium, bolstered partnerships with charities, and a reserve army of parent volunteers.”

Francesca Fraser, Senior Researcher and report author, said:

“An enriching education is vital to social mobility. It aids academic progress but also helps to build the cultural capital that is fundamental in later life. Yet too often the benefits that come from enrichment are not felt by those who could be helped most.

“To make matters worse, schools up and down the country are cutting back their enrichment offer in the face of rising costs. The new Government is right to refer to education as the closest thing to a silver bullet. But if this is to be the case, they need to be supporting schools to get the best out of their pupils. Enrichment needs to be part of the solution.”