School is a place designed to shape not just the career of students but also their entire emotional development. But how does it happen? It is easily achievable by different mentally stimulating extracurricular activities included in middle school.
During school, a child learns to enhance and expand knowledge of different areas. A well-planned list of extracurricular activities seeks to boost students’ performance in school.
Extracurricular activities include all the multifarious activities that are not part of the prescribed school curriculum. Different schools encourage students to be active in such meticulously designed activities to boost schoolers’ mental and emotional health.
Sports & Physical Fitness Programs:
A well-designed sports and physical fitness program is one of the best extracurricular activities to encourage students to be fitness freaks. Students can begin by enrolling as sports team captains they find fascinating. There are different sports areas they can choose from in school. Another good thing is to be a trainer on your respective sports team and start training your peers.
Arts, Music & Creative Expression:
One of the best extracurricular activities for 13-year-olds to increase their mental stimulation is in the field of arts, music & any other creative expression. There are various ways to get enrolled in this segment, such as creating a literature club at school, hosting poetry slams to help students try their creativity, and being a part of a literary magazine for editing the literature pieces by different creative writers. By creating a platform for celebrating young writers, a school can help students effectively improve their intellectual and communicative skills.
Leadership & community service initiatives:
There are different schools with extracurricular activities that aim to help students learn about leadership by selecting the head girl or head boy. Students can also opt to create a student union council with the help of their teachers and elect different students as the leaders of that council based on their performance at school. There are also different ways to encourage students to participate in community service initiatives. It helps students learn the spirit of teamwork.
How Extracurricular Activities Shape Personal Growth?
There are various ways in which extracurricular activities for students can shape their personal growth:
Developing leadership, teamwork & responsibility:
When schoolers get involved in activities other than their school curriculum, they immediately learn about the responsibility of being an active member of the activity. For instance, whenever there is an annual sports meet or time to elect new student council members, the schooler will understand the value of teamwork and leadership in deciding who is the best student for the position.
Enhancing Creativity & Problem-Solving Abilities:
Another way in which extracurricular activity can shape students’ personal growth is by improving their creative skills. For example, students can be motivated to come up with new creative write-ups for school literary magazines.
Moreover, students can enhance their problem-solving skills by participating in different science, maths, and coding-related activities.
Reducing stress and promoting well-being:
Long hours of studying in the school curriculum lead to stress for students. However, a diverse range of extracurricular activities can help manage stress and improve children’s overall well-being. Different activities play an important role in making their brain sharp and active.
Academic Benefits of Extracurricular Involvement:
There are different benefits of involving students in different types of extracurricular activities in school:
Extracurricular activities improve focus & time management:
Students tend to learn to enhance focus and manage time by balancing school studies and extracurricular activities. In this way, they get well-versed with multi-tasking at a young age.
Link Between Extracurricular & Better Grades:
Designed to boost mental health and emotional intelligence, extracurricular activities can eventually help students achieve good grades in the school curriculum. By being mentally and physically active in other activities, students pass school exams with flying colours.
Balancing Academics with extracurricular activities:
To be a pro at multi-tasking, students need to learn to balance their school studies and participation in mentally stimulating extra activities.
Smart Time Management for the students:
Certain activities are thoughtfully designed to help students manage time efficiently. For instance, when sports training comes up along with school exams, schoolers learn how to manage their studies, revise for the exams, and do sports training.
Avoiding burnout: setting priorities effectively:
At times, students feel pressure to participate in extracurricular activities and school tests. In such cases, they might experience a burnout phase. In order to handle this effectively, parents and teachers must encourage schoolers to prioritise their tasks accordingly. Eventually, they become familiar with understanding their priorities regarding when they need to decrease their involvement in extracurricular activities to focus on their primary goal.
How does Inventure Academy promote Holistic Development?
School Clubs, Competitions & Special Programs:
At Inventure Academy, we promote the holistic overall development of children through school clubs, organizing different competitions for improving mental stimulation, and other methods. We also have different programs that help improve students’ growth effortlessly.
Encouraging Passion & Talent Development:
We encourage schoolers to participate in different STEM activities, writing activities, athletics, etc., to boost their mental, physical, and emotional well-being.
How Parents Can Support Their Child’s Extracurricular Journey?
Encouraging Active Participation & Exploration:
Parents must talk to their children to understand their interests and accordingly motivate them to be involved in numerous activities in school. They must guide children so that they start exploring the activities even at home by practising sports they are interested in or by inculcating a habit of reading books, etc.
Maintaining a Healthy Balance Between Studies & Activities:
Parents can help their children understand the importance of balancing studies and activities by teaching them the value of both. Eventually, students will understand that getting good grades in school exams is as important as taking part in the best extracurricular activities to learn the spirit of teamwork, responsibility, physical fitness, etc.
Conclusion:
Extracurricular activities are important in shaping students’ overall growth at an early age. Extracurricular activities demand students’ responsibility towards team building, the ability to take initiative in organising different events, etc. Schoolers need a well-structured platform to unleash their skills in different areas besides academics. Different activities help students in this regard; some require designing a plan for hosting events like sports day, and some require decision-making skills like selecting good write-ups for literary magazines, etc.
Read their blogs and pages to learn more about Inventure Academy and how they help students be active in extracurricular activities.
Yeshwanthpur