Co-curricular Participation, Attendance & Achievement – PNBHS in 2023

As a school, we strongly encourage all young men to participate in our co-curricular programme.  Alongside the many social benefits and positive impacts on character development from co-curricular involvement, we wanted to see what the relationship was with achievement and attendance and have looked at our 2023 data in this regard.

In the junior school (Year 9 and Year 10) we looked at the achievement, measured by the average mark in the end-of-year examinations across the core subjects (English, mathematics, science and social studies), and attendance of young men involved in co-curricular activities compared to those who are not involved.  This data is shown in the table below:

Young men who are involved in co-curricular activities achieve, on average, at a higher level in school examinations and attend school more regularly than young men who are not involved in our co-curricular programme.

In the senior school (Years 11, 12 and 13)) we looked at the achievement, measured by the average number of NCEA credits achieved and attendance of young men involved in co-curricular activities compared to those who are not involved. This data is shown in the table below:

Again the same pattern is evident - young men who are involved in co-curricular activities achieve, on average, a greater number of NCEA credits and attend school more regularly than young men who are not involved in our co-curricular programme.  

What are the benefits of co-curricular involvement?

Psychologist Angela Duckworth has investigated what makes people ‘gritty’ – in other words, what helps them to develop attributes such as persistence, perseverance, fortitude, resolve and moral character. Duckworth states that there are countless research studies identifying that young people who are involved in co-curricular activities “fare better on just about every conceivable metric – they earn better grades, have higher self-esteem, are less likely to get into trouble”. The qualities that Duckworth associates with grit are more evident in people who have been involved with co-curricular activities over an extended period of time – at least two years. She posits that these people have had numerous difficulties, challenges and failures to overcome and, rather than quitting, have faced these situations and learned from the experience. Her general message is that more participation predicts better outcomes.

The New York Times has reported studies concluding that exercise can significantly improve children’s cognitive abilities and their academic performance, as well as their health. This publication quoted “a growing body of evidence” indicating that children who are more active are better able to focus their attention, are quicker to perform simple tasks, and have better working memories and problem solving skills than less-active children. While acknowledging that academic performance is influenced by factors like parental involvement and socioeconomic status, there is evidence that active children tend to achieve at higher levels, especially in reading and mathematics. 

 An article in the Journal of Paediatrics identified a link between physical fitness and academic success. The researcher, Dr. Esteban-Cornejo, concluded that having higher levels of physical fitness may help to reduce the risk of failure at school and that all efforts should be made to promote physical activity in teenagers in a bid to improve their academic grades.  

Co-curricular activities have long been recognised as a ripe environment for the development and testing of one’s character. In her publication ‘Taught not Caught: Educating for 21st Century Character,’ former United Kingdom Secretary of State for Education Nicky Morgan cites evidence bearing out this long-held assumption: “Non-cognitive skills and habits such as grit, teamwork, leadership and sociability are unmistakably developed among participants in extracurricular activities.” Furthermore, “activities outside the formal school day are important in encouraging a sense of achievement and also an increased belief that a person’s own actions lead to positive change.” Co-curricular activities are identified as developing new experiences, confidence and self-esteem, commitment to a goal, increased depth and width of interests, positive attitude, skills of time management and prioritising, making a contribution and relationship and people skills.

In ‘The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist's Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults’, Dr. Frances Jensen notes that a lack of co-curricular activities increases risk-taking behaviour in boys, while involvement in team activities appears to have a ‘protective’ value in keeping boys away from risky behaviour.

The Association of Boys’ Schools New Zealand has commissioned independent research studies comparing the achievement of boys in boys’ schools with the achievement of boys in coeducational schools. The results of this study, which have now utilised ten years of achievement data, are unequivocal; boys in boys’ schools are more likely to achieve educational qualifications than boys who attend coeducational schools, boys in boys’ schools are more likely to gain Merit and Excellence endorsements than boys who attend coeducational schools, and boys who attend boys’ schools are far less likely to leave school without a formal qualification when compared to boys who attend coeducational schools. Furthermore, these findings held true across all ten deciles.

Dedication to a strong co-curricular programme was recognised as one of eight key factors accounting for the success of young men who attend boys’ schools. In her summary of the findings of this study, Cathy Wylie, NZCER Chief Researcher, stated “What was really interesting was how the high-performing schools stressed the importance of a student-centred approach, offering co-curricular activities alongside academic programmes for holistic development, and developing self-managing students who set high goals for themselves.” This statement encapsulates much of why we believe co-curricular activities are so important. Sporting and cultural activities provide vital lessons for young men as they develop their character. They put young men into situations in which they are challenged and are required to rely upon each other in order to achieve. Young men learn about working as part of a team within set rules and team culture (integrity), commitment, competition and hard work (industry), the importance of having good time management and organisational skills, they gain valuable lessons in coping with defeat and what they need to improve their performance for next time (courage), and learn how to win with humility, to take pride in their performance, while at the same time respecting their opposition.

Psychologist Richard Weissbourd identifies that empathy and an appreciation for others can be developed through team or group activities: “Competition challenges children to appreciate the skills of opposing players even when they seem like mortal enemies, to find weaker teammates’ strengths even when those players are jeopardising the team’s chances of making the playoffs, to take the referee’s perspective, at least after the game, even when he or she has made a bad call at a critical moment. That’s the kind of demanding morality that helps to develop over time children’s capacity to see beyond their own intense feelings. To tolerate others’ flaws, to place others’ perspectives and needs on a par with their own.”