At Erdington Academy we had our second whole school enrichment day on Wednesday 11th March. This had to be one of our busiest planned days to date, there were lots of events and activities in school and visits to places of interest. This included ‘safeguarding’ workshops delivered to Year 8 and 10 covering contraception, gang crime, gambling awareness, stop and search and Loudmouth Theatre Company delivering a compelling performance. Year 10 and 11 students had time in their option subjects in school to consolidate their learning as well as careers linked workshops, including a careers talk by the Navy outreach team. For those year 10 students that were feeling adventurous, they went to Conkers Activity Centre where they tested their courage on the High Ropes course.
Despite the early days of the coronavirus, our Year 9 trip to The Houses of Parliament went ahead and students met local MP Jack Dromey. Another group of Year 9 students visited Birmingham Law Courts and had a tour of an art exhibition at The Ikon Gallery. Aim Higher funding was tapped into so that a group of Year 10 students could participate in a jewellery making workshop at BCU and a visit to the Law Department at Worcester University.
On the Friday before enrichment day, I received a message that The Big Bag Show at the NEC has been cancelled due to coronoavirus. I had planned for 155 students plus staff to go on this visit, so as you can imagine it was short notice to turnaround a plan but with the support of staff in school we did! Half of the cohort visited Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, where for some this was their first visit to an Art Gallery and they were amazed with the artefacts. The other half went to Thinktank where they boosted their STEM learning finding out about the wonders and ingenuity of science and technology. Unfortunately, our May enrichment day had to be cancelled but I hope that students make the most of all the wonderful home learning resources available to them during their time away from school. A big thank you to staff and visitors at Erdington Academy for their support and delivery of enrichment days at Erdington Academy.
