Enrichment plays a vital role in helping young people develop confidence, skills and aspirations. In this blog, our Year 10 work experience student Tim offers his perspective on why these opportunities matter and the difference they can make to young people's lives.

School is great. School teaches thousands of students so many things, like learning English, Maths, Spanish or Science; but the enrichment activities I do – like sailing, performing arts, and Duke of Edinburgh – have taught me things I’d never have learnt in school.

Unfortunately, many of these opportunities are not available to everyone as some are just too expensive. Students (like me) in state schools are more than three times more likely to stop all enrichment activities than those in private schools.

One of the key enrichment opportunities for me is Sea Cadets. Sea Cadets is a national uniformed youth organisation and charity, meaning Cadets is dual funded by both by charity, and by the Royal Navy. Cadets also pay a fee, but there is funding for teens struggling financially.

Cadets has significantly improved my life since I joined five years ago. I’ve made loads of friends, probably more than I make at school. At Cadets, it’s much easier to make close friends, as regular attendance and a smaller community leads to closer friendships - almost a “forged in the fire” effect.

One of my best friends was in my tutor group at school for three years, and I’d never spoken to him until he joined Cadets, then suddenly we became best friends, I showed him round the Unit, introduced him to my friends. He now wants to join the Royal Navy. “Sea Cadets was probably one of the best decisions I made” he once said after a particularly eventful unit weekend.

But it’s not just about making friends - I’ve also gained skills in Sailing, Kayaking and Paddleboarding, but in a fun way. In two weeks, I’ll be participating in the Area Level Sailing competition in Poole Harbour. I’m hoping I’ll do well – I might come second or third, and if I do, I will go through to the National Level - but it’s more about the experience for me

Other skills I’ve learnt include leadership and teamwork –due to my role as a senior cadet. I find leadership especially hard, but I’m helped a lot by my friends: specifically, two friends who are my only direct seniors. We work together a lot on Parade nights, and I feel they are two people who act as Mentors, and I don’t feel I’d be the same person if it weren’t for their guidance and support.

But it’s not just sailing I love – I’ve also been doing drama performances since infant school when I was the lead in The Greatest Showman, but I actually think my first one in Secondary School had a bigger effect on me. I started by accident - when a friend asked me to join him in auditioning for “The School of Rock” – to which we both got Lawrence, the nerdy piano player. The cast was split, which allowed me to make loads of friends and my confidence grew. I’ve since been in “Little Shop of Horrors and “Grease”.

Despite these amazing experiences, it can be very hard for people who are  struggling financially to do the same.

Nationally,  around57% of working-class families in the UK have stated they haven’t been able to afford school trips.

The government is doing more to open up these opportunities for young people, with an Enrichment Expansion Programme giving added funding of £22.5 million for about 400 schools. This is great, as the funding will be used to improve enrichment for schools serving students who cannot afford it ordo not have the opportunity to have enrichment activities. Despite this improvement, there are 25,000 state schools in England, and many schools will still receive no additional funding.

Worse still, it’s hard to determine how much individual schools provide – which have excellent enrichment opportunities, and which schools have poor enrichment. We still know relatively little about how much it will take for these measures to successfully close the disadvantage gap.

The Centre For Young Lives is trying to help the government solve these issues, by researching and plotting data to understand the hot and cold spots of enrichment provision in the country. This, paired with analysis of enrichment surveys will allow CFYL to measure how schools and local authorities are doing and make the case in the future for the government to provide more  enrichment opportunities nationwide.

I hope this research will enable more young people like me to access fun activities in our communities.

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