What is Enrichment?

There are many activities that you might be doing that demonstrate your skills, knowledge and qualities as a person. Enrichment activities help you to develop skills and qualities that are relevant to higher education and work. Most of them
are not formally recognised but the enrichment element of the AQA Bacc can change this. As an AQA Bacc student you will get recognition for all of the enrichment activities you do that are not credited elsewhere. Moreover, by keeping a record of those activities you will be able to demonstrate that you have the skills, experiences and qualities that will help you to succeed in your future choices.

What counts as an enrichment activity?

There is an almost endless number of activities that can be considered part of enrichment. The three core areas give you an idea of the types of activities that you might include in your enrichment portfolio:

Work related learning: activities that involve you, as active participants, in learning about the world of work.
Work related learning might include work experience and work shadowing, paid work and schemes, such as Young Enterprise, that are related to the world of work.

Community Participation: activities in which you work for the benefit of others.
Community participation might include activities you do that benefit your school/college community, your local community or national/ international communities. These might be things like; facilitating mentoring and anti-bullying schemes in school or running clubs for younger students; sports coaching; community volunteering with a large organisation like Oxfam or at a local hospital or school; fundraising for local, national and international charities or volunteering through
schemes such as V.

Personal Development: activities that you choose to do in addition to your academic pursuits. Personal development activities are all those things that you choose to do such as theatre, music, art, clubs and sports. You might be a member of the Cadets or Guides or you might run a philosophy club or play chess.

If you have any doubt about the eligibility of an activity contact your Enrichment Supervisor who will be able to offer you guidance.

What doesn’t count as an enrichment activity?

There are many other activities that you might be doing that are also important but are already recognised with a qualification or as part of your normal life in sixth form. You might, for example, be taking an Open University module in a subject that interests you. You might realise that a qualification in a modern foreign language will help you in your future career and be taking an additional GCSE, AS Level or A Level. You may also be taking part in your school/college’s PSHE programme, working hard towards success in your academic subjects and thinking about the things you need to do to make the transition from school/college to university or to work. All of these things are important and, crucially, each of them is either recognised with an academic qualification or is an activity that you would normally do in school or as preparation for university/work. As such, these activities cannot count towards your enrichment portfolio. AQA wants to give you credit for non-academic activities that you choose to do therefore you may not record hours against activities in the following four categories:

Any activity that is a required part of your academic studies in sixth form.
Your achievements in these activities and any extra work you do, such as going on field trips or attending supplementary lectures, are recognised in the grades that you get for your subjects.

The Enrichment Diary

Getting Started- you need to register. Click on the image for a larger image, or on the link on the side bar.



Your Enrichment Diary Home Page

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