Whilst the responsibility for extra-curricular activities usually lies with the school staff, church volunteers have regularly helped with a whole range of extra-curricular activities. These might range from accompanying a ski holiday or other residential trip, help with Duke of Edinburgh trips and training, offering to lead clubs such as football, computing, cookery, and supporting drama and music productions with stage management, props, scenery painting, music or makeup. Activity weeks during the school holidays are another possibility. Specific help with Christian clubs at lunch time or after school is often appreciated.
If you are able to start or help with a Christian club, it can be explicitly Christian if it is a voluntary activity for pupils who choose to attend. The headteacher would need to give their support and permission, and you must always be sensitive to the needs of the school. Activities should be appropriate for the age and family backgrounds of the pupils. For example, a club run in a village church primary school would probably be very different from a club run in a multi-faith inner-city community secondary school.
There are a number of sources of support for running Christian clubs in schools. For example: Scripture Union, Youth for Christ, Youth Alpha, Arise Ministries.
In addition, schools are now expected to offer 'out-of-hours' provision from 8.00am to 6pm each day. They can arrange to do this on their own site and manage it themselves, or they can work in collaboration with other schools or with outside agencies which provide such a service. This is part of the government's 'Every Child Matters' strategy and is aimed at providing better child care possibilities, activities for the community, ultimately improving standards in schools.
This might mean that the school provides a breakfast club and before-school activities, homework clubs and after-school clubs which children can join.
If the school is managing this themselves, they are usually glad of offers of help from church groups at either end of the day. Suitably qualified and CRB checked church volunteers can staff the breakfast club, help with after-school activities or offer to run clubs after-school as part of the 'out-of-hours' provision.
The opportunities for the church to be involved in these initiatives are immense. In order to deliver the 'out-of-hours' provision, schools need to work with the voluntary sector (and this of course includes the church). It also provides the opportunity for a church with well thought-out plans and proposals for community involvement to get involved at the very heart of the community.
As part of the extended services offered by a school, OfSTED will inspect what happens 'out-of-hours' and there is a requirement that pupils' spiritual development should be included within these activities to some degree. By getting involved with such activities, churches can help schools deliver an additional spiritual dimension to what they offer.