Film, TV and radio: making enrichment accessible to every learner

Enrichment is sometimes treated as the part of education that happens outside of the curriculum: clubs, trips, activities, career experiences and overall opportunities to encounter the wider world. However, the DfE’s current approach asks us to think about enrichment more broadly, instead describing it as a way to expand horizons, raise aspirations, develop skills and confidence, and prepare young people for adulthood. Crucially, it emphasises that these opportunities should be available to all, not just those who already have access to them through their families or circumstances.

This matters for inclusion, identifying accessible and enriching provisions beyond the classroom as one of the DfE’s seven principles of inclusive practice. The aim is not simply to enable learners with SEND to access the curriculum but to ensure they can participate in the wider opportunities that support personal development, independence and preparation for adulthood.

That raises a challenge for schools and colleges to ensure that every learner encounters the knowledge, experiences and opportunities that help them understand the world beyond education. Because learners do not start from the same place.

Some young people grow up hearing about different careers, visiting workplaces, discussing finances, and learning the unwritten rules of adult life through their families and wider networks. Others may have far fewer opportunities to encounter these things. That difference can shape confidence, aspirations and the ability to recognise opportunities when they arise.

Inclusive enrichment therefore has a role beyond simply providing “extra” activities. It can help make the wider world more visible and accessible to every learner.

However, this comes with additional guidelines from other DfE principles, such as ensuring these practices are ‘Evidence-based support prioritising early intervention’. This is the core of their initiative with the mainstream fund, encouraging schools to anticipate barriers for students that have not yet identified them, and provide generalised support backed by credible evidence.

Therefore, the use of film, TV, and radio in school settings becomes a clearer evidence-backed opportunity for schools to invest in. Research has consistently shown the benefits of streaming on engagement, memory, understanding, and inclusion – even extending into our own research with learner responses:

82% said access to film and television makes learning more engaging and enjoyable.

80% said it helps them understand their course subject.

80% said it helps them remember or retain information.

77% said film and television have helped them overcome learning challenges

So how can it be further applied to encourage enrichment provisions across the board?

How film, television and radio can help

Film, television and radio cannot replace the value of real-world experiences such as work placements, trips, visits or meeting employers. However, they can help bring the wider world into the classroom, particularly when learners may otherwise not have easy visibility of it.

A television programme can take a class behind the scenes of an industry they have only experienced as audiences. A radio segment can introduce them to real people navigating financial decisions. A comedy can expose the unwritten conventions of professional life and give learners a safe way to discuss what happens when those conventions are misunderstood.

In each case, the streamed content is the starting point of a larger discussion and shared experience – introducing unfamiliar environments and situations and turning assumed knowledge into something visible, explicit and discussable.

So how can film, TV, and radio be used in classroom examples to support high-quality adaptive teaching while delivering inclusive enrichment?

Classroom examples

Financial literacy: Making the unwritten rules of money accessible

Why film, TV and radio?

Financial decisions are an unavoidable part of adult life, but financial knowledge is not distributed equally among the young. Some learners may already be familiar with conversations about borrowing, interest, student finance or managing household finances. Others may only encounter these concepts in detail for the first time when they are expected to make decisions for themselves.

The issue is not simply whether financial education is provided; it is also whether every learner has the opportunity to develop the practical confidence to use that knowledge.

Radio and television can help by bringing expert guidance and real experiences into the classroom.

How it can be implemented

A teacher could use a short extract from BBC Radio 4’s Money Box on Box of Broadcasts (BoB) to explore student finance, borrowing or debt. Alternatively, students could watch a short segment featuring Martin Lewis explaining a financial decision they may encounter as young adults.

The content can then become the basis for realistic scenarios: for example, what does a student loan actually mean? What happens when someone uses a credit card? How does interest affect the amount eventually repaid?

Rather than simply learning financial terminology, students can use the examples to develop a short set of principles they would give to themselves — or to someone else — preparing for independent adult life.

Why this delivers enrichment provision

Using real experiences and expert voices allows schools to make the previously unevenly distributed knowledge available to everyone, rather than relying on learners to acquire it elsewhere. The opportunity is not simply the programme itself, it is the opportunity to encounter and discuss a part of adult life that some learners may otherwise have little chance to see, understand or discuss.

Creative media: Making careers visible

Why film, TV and radio?

The creative industries are a major part of the UK economy, contributing £124 billion and supporting 2.4 million jobs. Government and industry are also seeking to grow opportunities across the nations and regions, including major creative centres such as Greater Manchester, Cardiff, Bristol, Glasgow and Belfast.

Yet the growing industry does not automatically create equal access to its opportunities. A young person cannot aspire to a career they have never encountered, and it’s difficult to understand a career pathway when nobody in your immediate network works in that industry.

Television can be particularly powerful here because it can reveal the inside of an industry (creative, technical, and production roles) that learners only know as audiences.

How it can be implemented

A short BoB clip from the BBC’s Making of Lord of the Flies (2026), for example, could take students behind the scenes of the production. And rather than simply watching, students could be asked to identify the different jobs involved.

Who is responsible for what? Which roles require technical skills? Which involve creative decision-making? How do people collaborate? What happens when different responsibilities overlap?

The discussion can then easily evolve towards the students themselves: which roles can they imagine themselves doing? What skills would they need? What qualifications, training or experience could help them get there?

Why this delivers enrichment provision

Career enrichment often starts with something deceptively simple: visibility. Learners need to know that an opportunity exists before they can consider whether it is right for them.

That is particularly important as the creative industries expand, but young people still need to recognise those opportunities, understand the routes into them and be able to imagine themselves belonging there. Behind-the-scenes television can make this tangible.

And the principle extends far beyond television. With access to millions of programmes, BoB can open a window onto a wide range of workplaces, professions and industries that learners may otherwise never encounter.

Workplace skills: Making the unwritten rules of work visible

Why film, TV and radio?

Preparing young people for employment is about more than giving them access to a workplace – they also need to understand how to navigate it.

Much of professional behaviour is governed by assumed social conventions: how to introduce yourself, how to ask for help, how to respond to feedback, how to communicate with colleagues, and how to recognise professional boundaries.

Some learners will have absorbed these behaviours from family members or other adults around them; others may not. Yet both groups are expected to understand the same conventions when they enter an interview or work placement.

In making these invisible rules visible, television comedy can be an engaging tool. When a character gets a workplace situation spectacularly wrong, learners can identify the problem, work out why it happened and consider what should have happened instead.

How it can be implemented

Using “The Interview” from Peep Show on BoB, a teacher can explore what goes wrong and what can be improved when someone is trying to make a professional impression. Similarly, the “Work Experience” episode of The Office could prompt discussion about first days in the workplace: how should you introduce yourself? How do you work out what is expected? What should you do if you are unsure?

The humour of the shows gives every student a relaxed, immediate way into the conversation; from there, the teacher can unpack the underlying conventions and turn them into practical techniques that students can apply to their own experiences.

Why this delivers inclusive enrichment provision

Work experience is valuable, but simply providing that same opportunity to every learner does not mean every learner is equally equipped to benefit from it. But making the unwritten rules explicit can help address that difference – especially for a neurodivergent cohort.

A shared television experience gives every learner an opportunity to explore workplace expectations before they have to navigate them in real life. While it does not replace work experience, it helps learners arrive better prepared to make the most of it.

From access to opportunity

The most useful way to think about inclusive enrichment may therefore be to shift it from being an optional addition to education and instead make it part of how we prepare young people for the world beyond education.

Film, TV, and radio have a particular role to play because it can make that wider world visible. It can introduce learners to workplaces they would not otherwise see, decisions they may soon have to make, and conventions they may otherwise be expected to understand without explanation.

For learners with SEND, this can sit alongside the targeted support they may receive, while ensuring they remain part of the wider experiences their peers are having — consistent with the DfE’s emphasis on inclusion in wider school and community life. By offering it widely to pupils as well, it allows for students with unrecognised difficulties to gain generalised, inclusive frameworks before ever encountering the issue.

And for every learner, it offers something equally important: the chance to encounter a wider range of possibilities than their immediate circumstances might otherwise provide.

That is the real opportunity of enrichment – not simply to add more experiences to education, but to make sure that access to the wider world is not determined by what a young person happens to encounter outside the school or college gates.