ECAs are more than supervision

How our children spend their time after school/out of school has a tremendous impact on how they do inside of the classrooms. Research shows that after-school/extra-curricular activities can boost academic performance, improve behavior, ingrain healthy habits, and reduce the risk of developing bad ones. They tend to develop higher self-esteem and a positive sense of engagement with school.

Many of our parents work into the late afternoon which means that while they are doing the best they can to provide an excellent education for their children, students return home with little or no adult supervision. This may lead to excessive hours unsupervised on electronic devices which impacts children’s behavior, mood, attention, motivation, sleep and especially social learning. On the other hand, cardio-respiratory fitness is often a determining factor on both boys’ and girls’ grades on reading and math tests.

When they part-take in after-school activities, students can spend time in constructive, supervised settings after school where they are not only are they safe, but they have the opportunity to develop their physical, mental social and emotional skills, problem-solve relationship issues and attain and build healthy friendships.

Research also shows that High School students who participate in after-school activities tend to earn better grades. The importance of physical fitness in the development of cognitive and memory skills has long been extolled by scientists. Cardio-respiratory capacity, muscular strength, and motor ability are components of physical fitness that have been known to improve mental health.

Please do have a look at the wide variety of ECAs that we’ll have available for our students next week. Yes, you may have to do some convincing to get your son or daughter to take on something new. Like many things in life, we often look back and thank our parents for encouraging us to do something we didn’t want to.

If you don’t see something you’ like your child to do, please feel free to suggest it. Even better, come on in and volunteer some of your time and/or expertise….take an activity on yourself… it’s just once a week for an hour or so. Thanks in advance!