There’s so much more to learning than the written curriculum.
While your child will be navigating a lot of different things when it comes to school, your child will also be encouraged to explore extra-curricular activities as well. These are activities your child can pick up in between school lessons or after school, and can really improve a child’s skills, general development and the path to unlocking their passions.
In this guide from an independent school in Surrey, here are some key benefits that activities outside of the written curriculum bring to children.
The Benefits Of Extra-Curricular Activities
- Improves mental health
- Unlock passions
- Beneficial distraction from schoolwork
- Improves physical skills
- Opens up creativity
- Improves existing skills
Improves A Child’s Mental Health
Having good mental health will show children how they can successfully navigate those negative feelings and put them into something they enjoy. If they’re having fun in extra-curricular activities and getting to grips with their skills, they’re bound to be improving their own mental health as a result.
They’ve found an outlet for where they can vent, destress and reset their heads in extra-curricular activities.
Children Have The Chance To Unlock Their Passions
What may be holding a child back is their struggle to find something that makes them feel happy and engaged. Extra-curricular activities will help them discover their passions.
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Your child can then find something they inherently enjoy and appreciate, and look forward to on a regular basis. In unlocking a child’s passion, they’re able to give themselves something to focus on, improve on and explore.
A Distraction From Their Schoolwork
Having regular lessons in school will drain your child’s focus after a while. Looking at additional activities on top of your child’s normal lessons will help your child learn to take a break and unwind. In this time, your child is able to move their focus elsewhere for a short while.
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Extra-curricular activities should be fun and engaging. Yet they are also meant to be educational, so they won’t be missing out on skills and development from taking part in different activities each week.
It Can Improve A Child’s Physical Skills
A lot of extra-curricular activities involve sports or some form of exercise, so your child will be in good hands. If your child has a particular sport they’d like to try, then encourage them to join the local club in the school. Perhaps the local swimming club. Or even something like gymnastics.
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Sporting activities will raise a child’s endorphins and heart rate. Both of which will improve a child’s mood, keep them fit and healthy, and it can also improve their resilience.
Improves A Child’s Creativity
Even in sports and more interactive activities your child is going to appreciate how creative they can get outside the classroom. They’re learning to think freely about their next moves and what they would like to create within their space.
An arts club or a music club greatly lean into this in using a range of material to keep children thinking independently. Here they can learn to be valuable members of a team. Having the freedom to think about what they’d like to create in their own space makes for a happier and more confident child.
Develops Existing Skills
Aside from picking up new skills and using those skills, extra-curricular activities will greatly enhance the skills your child already knows.
For example, your child may be very well versed at handling resistance in a team, or disagreement. However, your child may well see more heated arguments between kids. This is where your child will need to improve on their skills even further in handling conflict, being reasonable, and learning to be respectful towards others.
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Team skills are heavily used in these kinds of activities which can also translate well in the classroom. Delegation, being an effective team player, communicating well and engaging with others. All are just as valuable in the classroom for the written curriculum, as they will be in extra-curricular activities.
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