Mike Fielding on the rewards of getting involved in activities off the timetable. At the end-of-show party, a boy with tears in his eyes leaps on a box and shouts “I want you to know, Miss, this is the best thing I’ve ever done in school”. Whether the tears are caused by make-up or emotion is unclear but what the rest of the cast feel becomes obvious when they hand presents to the producer, stage manager, wardrobe mistress and all the other teachers who have helped make the annual school play a success. They are both proud and grateful to have been involved.
It’s a moment which makes the months of effort and worry worthwhile, particularly if the cast includes youngsters who don’t normally shine in school. Similar highlights can occur at camp, on the football field, during a gallery visit, in a foreign country or any one of the many places where teachers and students work and play together outside the classroom.
These activities are, often rather dismissively, called extra curricular, as though they were outside the school’s real purposes but for teachers and students alike they can be the most satisfying and memorable part of school life.
They enable people normally constrained by the conventions of school organisation to see each another in a different light. Struggling up mountains together, playing computer games or clearing an area for conservation brings out many aspects of the real character of both students and staff which can get hidden in school. And both parties benefit.
I once knew a nervous chemistry teacher whose life as a soft target was completely transformed when some senior lads found they couldn’t beat her on the badminton court. And a boy famous for idleness suddenly grew in stature when staff and students discovered he was a highly inventive camp cook.
For some teachers - PE, drama and music specialists particularly - the line between mainstream and extra-curricular work is fuzzy. PE teachers expect to organise matches after school while drama and music teachers see plays and concerts as an essential extension of their classroom work and an alternative to the marking load of colleagues in other subjects. But you don’t have to be a specialist to run a club or offer an activity. Interest and enthusiasm are all that’s needed.
Some teachers prefer to run activities completely divorced from their classroom specialism. The sharing of a personal interest in model railways, coin collecting, embroidery, Tai Chi or any of the thousands of things teachers do in their spare time will give youngsters an interest which might last long after the details of national curriculum have been forgotten.
Another major area of extra-curricular work is the residential trip which throws staff and students into close proximity for days or weeks at a time. Whether in the UK or abroad, this kind of event produces inevitable strains - why do children never need sleep when they are with their friends, for instance? - but important benefits. It is on these trips that new views of individuals emerge most forcibly and new relationships are formed. Back at school, it’s common to hear a teacher strongly defending a student with whom he has been on a residential. And vice-versa!
The idea that a residential is an easy or cheap way for a teacher to get an extra holiday, however, is simply not true. Being on duty 24 hours a day and wholly responsible for other people’s children for an extended period can be very stressful.
Before the industrial conflicts of the late-1970s and early 1980s, extra curricular activities were accepted as a normal part of a teacher’s role. Responsibility points were given for organising out of school opportunities and staff were often appointed largely on the strength of what they could offer beyond their subject.
Lack of time, greater press sure to produce quantifiable results and recent tragedies which have generated more stringent health and safety regulations have combined to make many teachers reluctant to take on the responsibility. But extra curricular activities make an important contribution to the ethos of a school and the development of students and this is recognised within the OFSTED Framework as well as by parents and students.
For the new teacher it’s also an ideal way to gain a positive reputation. Children recognise the time involved and know that it is given from genuine interest and concern for them. The idea that “staff and students who play together, stay together” is an important one for the new teacher struggling to get established.
There is a cost in time and energy and new teachers may be warned off by the more experienced - particularly in the first year. But this is a pity.
Even if the school play producer bays she’ll never do it again because she can’t stand the strain, you can be fairly sure that when someone next year asks what show she is planning the old adrenalin will start pumping and she’ll feel again the exhiliration that always comes from working closely with young people in an informal setting and where different rules apply - on both sides.
