As the summer holidays start to roll around again, many parents find themselves thinking of ideas of what they can occupy their bright and energetic children with. Likewise, many older children will start to plan what they can do over the summer to help progress their education and the first steps of their dream career.
Children are increasingly enrolling into summer schools for many reasons. Not only do they offer a secure space so parents know their offspring are safe, but they also give children the opportunity to learn something new, meet new friends, gain independence and generally have a great time. The list is endless but we’ve detailed five key benefits that your child will see by attending a summer school.
Education
With a wide range of courses to choose from, summer schools offer a great opportunity for children to expand their knowledge on their favourite subjects or spread their wings and experience a subject they have not covered before at school. Language courses are particularly popular at summer camps, as well as more vocational or unusual subjects such as Global Leadership, engineering and business.
From a young age, summer schools can help children to explore their potential future career, giving them a chance to see whether they would like to take a particular subject further. In fact, the attendance of a summer camp is worth including on a CV as it illustrates a keenness to learn and a deeper understanding of the subject at hand.
Culture
As children travel from all over the world to attend a summer school, your child will be given the opportunity to mix with a culturally diverse friendship group. Enabling young people to appreciate other cultures, religions and practises helps them to become more wholesome and rounded individuals, and helps them become more empathetic.
Exposure to other cultures also helps build more social skills and reduce anxiety when meeting new people later in life. Summer camps encourage networking and ice-breaker style workshops that instills respect and multi-cultural communications skills in students.
Confidence
In the iPad age, many children’s lives are utterly ruled by technology. Younger people are finding it harder to make friends and confidently speak in public, as they become accustomed to communicating over social media and instant messages. However, at a summer school, children are encouraged to strike up conversations, introduce themselves to their teachers and peers and leave the devices to one side.
Despite our overreliance on technology, the working world has not vastly changed. As adults, they’ll be expected to attend interviews, answer the phone and confidently network with strangers in order to progress. By attending extracurricular summer camps outside of their usual social circles, children can help learn to build confidence and the vital self-esteem skills they will need later in life.
Motivation
In the corporate world, you will often hear of the term ‘self-starter’. Essentially, this refers to bright individuals who are willing to show initiative and go the extra mile without constant instruction. Children who attend summer schools and willingly take part in extracurricular education during their holidays are, by default, seen as self-starters. Instilling this valuable work ethic and understanding of the importance of self improvement is an ethos that is bound to help your child not only for their future career, but for any situation they may face later in life.
Summer schools offer the opportunity for children to develop many key skills not only for the educational and career aspects of their lives, but also their for their own social and personal benefits. Of course, many parents also value the respite from busy term times, homework and the constant ferrying between clubs and activities but, it’s their children that really benefit from the experience away from home.