The Manchester Grammar School shares how co-curricular activities help students to develop outside the classroom.
Education is not confined to the four walls of a classroom; it extends far beyond textbooks and exams. Extracurricular, or co-curricular, activities play a pivotal role in shaping a child’s overall development, offering a myriad of benefits that go beyond academic achievements. From improving social skills to fostering a sense of teamwork and discipline, participating in extracurriculars contributes significantly to a child’s holistic growth.
There are over 100 clubs and activities available to pupils at The Manchester Grammar School, and pupils also have the opportunity to start their own. Across the school, there are over 70 regular clubs and society activities, over and above those connected with Music, Sport, Outdoor Pursuits and Volunteering, mainly taking place at lunchtime and after school. It is a joy to watch pupils duelling at chess while eating their sandwich lunches or challenging each other’s vocabulary during Latin Scrabble Club!
Allowing students to organise their own activities is an excellent way to engage then in their own development. Pupils often organise new activities, for example, the new Year 7 Engineers are currently dreaming of launching a rocket. For our older Senior School pupils, MUN is very popular and busy as pupil prepare for conferences taking place at MGS and other local schools
in the area, while clubs such as Pi Shop (Mathematics), Doc Soc and Eng. Soc, which are all led by pupils, flourish.
Activities Week is also a long-standing tradition at The Manchester Grammar School, allowing children to develop outside the classroom. For one week in the summer term, all teaching stops and every pupil in the school elects to do a week-long activity. Typically, around 450 pupils go on residential trips, which include visits to: Bassenthwaite Camp (watersports activities); Borrowdale Camp (walking activities); Grasmere Camp (mountaineering activities) and Wye Camp (multi-activity).
There is a range of other opportunities for pupils to be active and adventurous beyond their daily life at the school, encouraging students to try new activities and experiences. Every Saturday during term time, there are free Mountain Activity Days (MAD days) which regularly take pupils to the Lake District and Snowdonia National Park, plus a wide range of education trips, in the UK and overseas as well as three annual treks – Scottish, Foreign and Desert – which offer pupils the chance to learn more about their subjects and themselves.
Life beyond the classroom is one of the special things about The Manchester Grammar School, and it is a key part of what we are about. The vast and diverse programme of co-curricular activities enables all boys to explore and develop new interests: it offers them opportunities to challenge themselves, develop teamwork and leadership skills, make friends and have fun. For many MGS boys, what they experience beyond the classroom is as important and life-enhancing as what they learn in it.