After School Program

• SPECIAL EVENTS: Come to Our After School/Extracurricular Program Open Houses, 7/25 and 8/8/08!
• Program Overview
• Meet Ms. Jessica Hunter, Program Director/Teacher
• Program Cost
• How Children Benefit From a Structured After School/Extracurricular Program
  

SPECIAL EVENTS: After School/Extracurricular Program Open Houses, 7/25 and 8/8/08!
Come to visit us during our Open Houses on Friday, 7/25/08 and Friday, 8/8/08 from 5-7pm at our Holly Springs location to get a glimpse of the wonderful experiences in store for your child(ren) when attending our program! Ms. Jessica Hunter, Program Director/Teacher, will walk you through what to expect while your child(ren) can meet others already in the program, providing you the opportunity to ask questions and find out all you need to know.

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Program Overview – After School/Extracurricular Program, 2008/2009
Enroll your child(ren) in grades K through 8 to attend our after school/extracurricular program. We’ll transport from area schools to provide more than just day care for your child! Activities include:

• Daily Tae Kwon Do classes
• Supervised homework and character education
• Daily interactive hands-on special studies/activities: Science, Math, Language, Art, Nutrition

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Meet Ms. Jessica Hunter, Program Director/Teacher
Ms. Hunter joined K.S. Lee’s Best Martial Arts of North Carolina after moving cross country from California with her family. She has a strong background in children’s scholastic, artistic, and fitness programs, ranging from fun fitness to wild science experiments!

In addition to a solid academic and cultural background, she is a certified nutritionist, a holistic health practitioner, and a certified personal trainer specializing in children’s fitness. Her overall experience spans more than 20 years, and her philosophy is simple: create and sustain a program at which she would be comfortable leaving her own child!

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Program Cost
Fees are $270 per month for current Best Martial Arts students and $300 per month for those who aren’t Best Martial Arts students. There is a 10% discount for additional children in the same family.
Submit your request for placement in the 2008/2009 school year today!

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How Children Benefit From a Structured After School/Extracurricular Program
School-age children between the ages of 5 and 14 spend up to 80% of their time out of school. These hours represent an opportunity to help children grow and acquire important social, emotional, cognitive, and physical skills and to help them develop lifelong interests. This time can also be used to provide support for the academic challenges faced by children each day in school.

Extracurricular Activities

The theory of multiple intelligences developed by Gardner (1993) broadens our view of how humans learn and realize their potential. Classroom instruction focuses chiefly on logical/mathematical intelligences. By tapping into the underutilized intelligences, such as extracurricular activities can encourage the development of skills and interests not fully nurtured during the school day. Extracurricular activities appear to provide leadership and social skills development. These skills have been shown to lead to greater self-esteem and higher aspirations in both current academic situations and in the pursuit of long-term careers (Carns et al., 1995).

Another way to challenge children and youth after school is to deepen their learning about themselves, their community, and the world beyond. Mentoring and service learning can provide youth with the opportunity to explore a variety of work environments. In addition, students who have not performed well academically in school may find an area in which they feel competent (Miller, 1998).

While lessons and extracurricular classes have always been a part of the lives of affluent suburban children, more attention is now focused on the importance of "enrichment" programming in the lives of all children (U.S. Department of Education & U.S. Department of Justice, 1998).

In a recent report, Champions of Change: The Impact of the Arts on Learning, published jointly by the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities and the Arts Education Partnership, several independent researchers concluded that engagement in the arts nurtures the development of cognitive, social and personal competencies. Arts programs can increase academic achievement, help decrease youth involvement in delinquent behavior and improve youth attitudes about themselves and the future.

More specifically, researchers found that learning in and through the arts:

• Contributes significantly to improved critical thinking, problem posing, problem
  solving and decision-making;
• Involves the communication, manipulation, interpretation and understanding of
  complex symbols, much as do language and mathematics;
• Fosters higher-order thinking skills of analysis, synthesis and evaluation;
• Regularly engages multiple skills and abilities; and
• Develops a person’s imagination and judgment.

While many types of after-school programs provide important access, extension and support to children’s learning and social development, those that include the arts add a special dimension. Furthermore, after-school programs add important elements to in-school arts curricula through extended engagement with the artistic process beyond the usual 45-minute school periods. Extra time for instruction and structured exploration give students more satisfactory opportunities for self-expression or development of their abilities in one or more art forms. This, in turn, enables these young people to develop the motivation, skills and discipline necessary to make meaningful contributions to solo or group projects. They learn about the importance of high standards of achievement for themselves and others. They experience what it means to maintain focus and how sustained practice can lead to higher levels of proficiency.

Research shows that children who participate in after-school programs generally attain higher academic achievement, behave better in class, handle conflict more effectively and cooperate more with authority figures and with their peers than their counterparts who are not in after-school programs. (This research is summarized in the publication Safe and Smart: Making the After-School Hours Work for Kids released in 1998 by the U.S. Department of Education and revised in April 2000 as Working for Children and Families: Safe and Smart After-School Programs.) Arts learning experiences can alter the attitudes of young people toward themselves and each other. For example, students involved in sustained martial arts often show gains not only in reading proficiency, but also in self-control and motivation and in empathy and tolerance for others. Arts activities can promote shared purpose and the team spirit required.

Learning in and through the arts can even help students overcome the obstacles of disadvantaged backgrounds. For example, one of the Champions of Change reports, using data from a study that followed over 25,000 students for 10 years, found that students consistently involved in some sort of performing arts show significantly higher levels of mathematics and reading proficiency by grade 12—regardless of their socioeconomic status.

Schools and youth organizations have indicated that the most important factor in the success of their programs is the relationship between participants and the adults who work with them. After-school arts programs give young people direct contact with various artists in any given field and other professionals who work in arts organizations. Young people in these programs gain substantial learning and practice opportunities with adults and older youth who serve as teachers and mentors. These professionals do not replace in-school arts teachers, but they do support, supplement, and enhance in-school education.

According to Gaining the Arts Advantage: Lessons from School Districts that Value Arts Education, released in 1999 by the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities and the Arts Education Partnership, the most critical element in sustaining arts learning efforts appears to be active community involvement in shaping and implementing policies and programs. After-school programs offer outstanding opportunities to engage community resources,  which in turn engage their own networks. These resources can then be applied to in-school programs as well, thus supporting and enhancing the work of professional teachers. Several of the examples cited above demonstrate how in-school and after-school programs can work together as part of a comprehensive, district-wide and community-wide strategy to give all children a top-quality education in the arts.

Increasingly, parents want after-school programs to provide homework help. O'Connor and McGuire (1998) caution, however, that a balance between remedial tasks and informal learning is needed to motivate and challenge children. After a full school day, children need time to blow off steam, have snacks, play with friends, and build consistent relationships with caring and competent adults. These hours provide not only a time to address the day-to-day needs of completing homework and practicing academic skills, but also an opportunity to develop talents and hobbies to enrich children's lives over the long term.

Conclusion

Out-of-school time programs provide opportunities for young adolescents to learn skills that are not usually acquired in school, such as athletic and artistic performance skills. Programs may also extend and enrich academic skills by enabling participation in a debate club or computer club. In some cases, these experiences lead to lifelong interests or careers. But perhaps more importantly, the sense of competence and affiliation that can flourish during out-of-school time provides the best reason for enrichment programs

Publication Release: July 26, 2007

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