The UK government announced on Friday a £22.5 million investment to expand enrichment activities in more than 400 secondary schools serving disadvantaged communities. The funding, through the Enrichment Expansion Programme, is provided by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and delivered with the Department for Education.

Schools will receive tailored support for activities during or after the school day: sports teams, music groups, engineering clubs, debating societies, volunteering and outdoor learning. Authorities estimate that hundreds of thousands of young people could benefit; that figure is a government estimate, not a measured outcome.

Schools minister Georgia Gould said a great education includes the football team, the school play, the debate competition and the volunteering project, not only the classroom. Vicky Foxcroft, minister for young people, tied the programme to the State of a Nation survey of more than 14,000 young people.

Delivery sits with the Youth Sport Trust and national partners. Enrichment coordinators will work with clusters of schools to identify gaps, draw up plans and connect units with local organisations. A Department for Education blog says schools on the programme are due to start receiving support from January 2027.

The announcement sits within the Youth Matters strategy, which aims by 2035 to halve the participation gap in enriching activities between disadvantaged young people and their peers. Not every school in England receives money through this line.

The impact will depend on school selection, how funds are used, the quality of activities and whether they continue after funding ends. The announcement describes a programme being launched, not a result already achieved.

Image: Department for Education entrance, London, 16 August 2021 / Sebastiandoe5 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. A government building, not pupils and not an enrichment session. Cropped to 16:9.

Source consulted: More enriching activities for hundreds of thousands of children | GOV.UK; Enrichment activities: what parents need to know | Education Hub.