Traditional school curriculums focus on academics with a set number of standard subjects and syllabi and several extra-curricular activities. Enrichment programs aim to assist children, especially in preschool, develop skills outside the regular classwork, such as creative writing, sports, foreign languages, and performing arts. The benefits of enrichment include increasing exposure and networking, skills and interest development, boosting confidence and self-esteem, and community engagement.
Enrichment program exposure complements the static nature of public school curriculums. The enrichment programs contain activities that encourage students to learn using different methods through engaging projects and activities. It also lets the students absorb regular classwork in new and fun ways.
Secondly, enrichment programs aid in increasing interest and skills. Regular classwork takes a one-size-fits-all approach. However, students will develop different interests and excel at various skills. Enrichment programs assist the students in identifying their skills and interest areas. Focusing on areas that align with natural talents and abilities fosters opportunities to develop potential skills, achieve goals, and set a precedent for future professional development.
In many cases, enrichment programs have smaller teacher-student ratios. It enables attention and focus on each student and flexibility in attending to special requirements. Since the activities are ungraded, the teachers have more time to focus on dispensing the knowledge and content rather than preparing for, setting, and grading examinations.
For some students, the pre-teen and teen years abound with confidence and self-esteem challenges and personal abilities uncertainties. The regular school schedule may lack the capacity to address these issues alongside regular school work, with most focusing on hard skills with no room for soft skills. Enrichment programs provide an avenue to enhance confidence and personal abilities by offering new and exciting projects and activities. The projects, typically un-graded, focus on a supportive environment to develop communication skills, confidence, public speaking, independent decision-making, address new ideas, and cognitively challenge themselves.
With busy and set school programs, the community rarely gets time to engage with the students in a school setting except at home and events like sports and parent-teacher association meetings. The enrichment programs enable the community members to actively participate in the students’ academic growth through various initiatives and build beneficial relationships with the school. The tangible connection also helps school fundraising for beneficial projects, as an engaged community is more likely to support, donate, or lobby for various projects. Also, the enrichment initiatives offer a sliding scale, which makes them accessible to all members of the community regardless of household income levels or background.
Research shows that students can lose an average of 20 to 27 percent of academic and school-year gains during the summer breaks. Depending on location, some students face exposure to several ills like alcohol and substance abuse due to a lack of positive engagement activities. Enrichment programs mitigate or reduce the chances of backsliding or engaging in unruly behavior and undesirable activities by offering fun but interesting learning programs during this break.
Besides raising funds through engagement, the school can use the enrichment program as a marketing tool. Case studies and examples of the value of the programs show a commitment to the wellness and holistic development of the student. It may help enroll new students, grants from organizations focusing on children and educational development, and encourage re-enrolling the existing students.
