Extra-Curricular Offer

We are proud that enrichment is a core part of school life for every one of our pupils. Our clubs offer complements and builds on this enrichment, allowing pupils more chances to develop their interests, talents and develop personally. 

Pupils can join informal sport, ensemble music experiences, support in the library, join chess comrades or drop into Art and Design Technology during their social time. 

Our music offer is wide ranging spanning opportunities in the timetabled enrichment programme and well beyond as part of our extra-curricular offer. We encourage all pupils to play an instrument – this includes subsidising as a school instrumental lessons for all pupils (piano, strings, percussion, brass – we source teachers for whatever pupils are interested in in their transition meeting or when they join). We do subsidise the cost further for pupils with FSM. Our musicians are encouraged to take part in various instrumental ensembles throughout the week at lunchtime including our concert band, strings ensemble and two rock bands. We nominate pupils for the network orchestra (Ark Fusion) and they have a serious of Satrday rehearsals and an Easter residential.  

Our singers have lots of opportunities - pupils can take part in choir Tuesday lunchtime and during Thursday enrichment. Singers are also nominated for the Ark Spark network choir where they can sing as part of a substantial group. We also join performances with BEAT (Barnet Education and Arts Trust) and have performed 2 years running at the Royal Albert Hall as part of a Barnados charity show.

Both musicians and singers take part in the Ark Gala performance every year, an annual network show in the Barbican – this incorporated 38 Ark schools last year. We have our own Spring Concert which all of our groups feature and soloists at an earlier learning stage also perform to open the evening. In addition we have a school musical, last year Bugsy Malone and the previous year Little Shop of Horrors – rehearsals for this take place during Friday enrichment and after school. Pupils audition and volunteer to commit.

Note the choir have performed at the Royal Albert Hall for a Barnados Charity Gig- we sponsored participation/ t shirts required. Choir also performed at the Barbican last July at the Ark Gala, again we ensured pupils had necessary uniform, staff support and event at no cost. They also have performed in our own Spring Concert
 

In December we hold a school wide Seasonal Celebration. This includes pupils from Y8, 9 & 10 who rehearse weekly.

In addition at school over lunchtime we have further clubs ad drop ins available for pupils:

• Our Library is open every day before school, break, lunch. Our Library Leaders run the space with our duty lead. Pupils can use the space to study, browse books, read or use the suite of desktop computers.
• Art & Design Technology clubs - drop ins encouraged during the week with different days for each year group. Pupils encourages to attend with a much coveted queue skip if they attend

At Ark Pioneer, we are committed to encouraging our students to foster a lifelong enthusiasm for, and love of, reading for pleasure. The library offers an up-to-date wide range of resources to support this aim, including fiction and information books, manga and comic books and magazines. We hold regular events and competitions open to all to help create a school-wide reading environment; this year these have included a monthly ‘books and biscuits’ lunchbreak event, a Roald Dahl day Kahoot quiz, a newspaper activity for non-fiction November and a ‘read for raffle’ winter reading competition. We celebrate national initiatives, such as world book day, and are excited to have our first book club made up of year 11 PE students, who are currently reading a spy thriller. Our fantastic team of library leaders comprises of students from years 7-11 who take pride in assisting with the development of our library as it continues to grow with our school.