As the years go on and on in schools, the given from classes gets harder, takes a longer amount of time and often requires a lot of dedication. With less time, many older students seem to feel as they have so little time to do the activities that are not school related that they enjoy, especially since when it comes down to it, students will get far much more credit for allocating their time to their subjects than for partaking in extracurricular activities. In most highly competitive universities across the UK, extra- curricular activities are often overlooked and are not required as long as students are able to achieve good grades and perhaps super- curricular activities.

To some people, this may be an positive since this means that students will spend more time highly specialises in the various subjects that they have chosen to study. Also, often the idea of giving students extra credit for extracurricular, some argue defeats the objective in partaking in these activities in the first place as it makes them more pressurised and are another thing for students to feel worried about

Others, however, might view the lack of extra- curricular motivation as a negative since extra- curricular activities have many advantages such as giving students a wide range of skills, broadening the opportunity for students to gain social skills and socialise with friends and give students a break from their everyday studies. One way that we could encourage pupils to take part in more activities would be to give them more credit for the extra- curricular activities that they choose to do. This could include universities and employers putting more weight on a students ability to balance their time and gain a wide range of general skills.

On the topic of extra- curricular activities, this is what some pupils had to say:

‘I think that extra- curricular activities are fun and enjoyable but that giving extra- credit for doing them would make them less enjoyable as it would instead make them overly competitive and there would be pressure to join them’ - Sophia Graham, aged 17.