Student Union roles, volunteering, charity fundraising, and working with organisations across Hertfordshire. Last year students ran charity football, packed emergency supplies with Packathon, worked with Herts Young Homeless, took part in County Lines awareness workshops, and put on a Culture Day that brought the whole college together.
There is more to college than your course
We are not here to feed you. We are here to empower you.
Enrichment at Oaklands is everything that happens around your course. Clubs, sport, trips, volunteering, competitions, guest speakers, and a lot that you will not have thought of yet. It is where you meet people from other courses, try something you have never done, and build the parts of yourself that a qualification cannot show.
Last year more than 95 per cent of our students took part in enrichment. It is not an optional extra bolted onto the timetable. It is part of your programme, and it is one of the reasons employers and universities take Oaklands students seriously.
The deal is simple. Work with us, work with us actively, and we will help get you ready for whatever comes next.
What is on offer
Our programme is built around five areas, so that whatever you are into, and whatever you have never tried, there is a way in.
Film Club, music and drama, art exhibitions, open mic nights, and radio. Students have heard from the BBC, worked with Fix Radio, taken portfolio workshops with the University for the Creative Arts, and travelled with their courses to Barcelona and South Africa.
This is where Oaklands is genuinely different. We have a working farm, an apiary, a zoo and four hundred acres of grounds on the St Albans campus. Students take part in lambing weekends, wildlife walks, litter picks, tree and bird spotting, and rounders on the field when the weather allows. You do not need to be on an animal or land-based course to get involved.
Oaklands Wolves sports academies cover athletics, basketball, cheerleading, cycling, football including SEND football, golf, hockey, combat, netball, rugby and multisport. Alongside the academies there is a free gym, badminton, table tennis and casual sport, for anyone who wants to play rather than compete.
Practical things that matter once you leave. Money and finance sessions, CPR training, health and wellbeing support through the NHS Sexual Health Service, careers fairs, higher education fairs, and the Industry Advantage Scheme, which connects students directly with employers.
The student lounges
Both campuses have a student lounge, open every day. Table tennis, games consoles, board games, card games, and somewhere to sit with your mates between lessons. It is one of the busiest parts of college life and it is free.
New for 2026/27: the Oaklands Championships
A year-long competition across both campuses in FIFA and table tennis. Drop in at lunchtime, play, earn points, climb the league table. The best players from St Albans and Welwyn Garden City face each other in the finals, with the FIFA final played on the big screen in our Immersive Centre. Sign up at Freshers Fair.
Start your own club
If the thing you want does not exist, tell us and we will help you make it happen. That is not a slogan, it is how several of our clubs started. Come and find the enrichment team, tell us what you have in mind, and we will help you set it up, find a space and get people through the door.
Your voice, and the Student Union
The Student Union is how students shape what happens at Oaklands. It has an elected executive with Presidents and Vice Presidents at both campuses, and officers covering areas such as equality, diversity and inclusion, and sustainability.
This is not decoration. Union representatives sit down with senior college staff, raise the things students actually care about, and things change as a result. Every class also nominates two class representatives, so there is a route in whether or not you want a formal role.
If you have an idea about how to make life here better, we want to hear it.
Getting recognised for it
Enrichment counts. Taking part is recognised through certificates awarded at our Student Conference Day, and we are developing further recognition for students who commit across the year. When you come to write a personal statement or sit in front of an employer, this is the material that makes you interesting.
Freshers Fair
Every year we open with Freshers Fair at both campuses. Employers, universities, local organisations, activities, inflatables, therapy dogs and food. It is the easiest way to see everything at once and sign up for what you fancy.
For parents and carers
Enrichment is part of your son or daughter’s study programme, not an optional extra. It is planned, recorded and reviewed alongside their course, and it exists because qualifications alone are not what get young people into work or higher education.
What enrichment does is give students something to talk about. The confidence to walk into a room of strangers, the experience of organising something, the evidence that they can commit to a thing over time. Those are the qualities employers tell us they are looking for and cannot find on a transcript.
We also know that students who take part in enrichment attend better and do better. That is not a slogan, it is what our own data shows.
Encourage them to take part early. The students who get the most out of Oaklands are almost always the ones who joined something in the first few weeks. If your son or daughter is not sure where to start, the enrichment team will help them find something, and they can be contacted through the college.
For employers and partners
Enrichment is where our students develop the things employers consistently tell us are missing: communication, reliability, teamwork, initiative and the confidence to speak up.
We work with employers and organisations across Hertfordshire and beyond, including Willmott Dixon, Morgan Sindall, Peabody, Clarion, Computacenter, the Hertfordshire Agricultural Society and the NHS. Partners contribute in a range of ways, and none of them require a large commitment of time.
● Speaking to students about your industry and your own route into it
● Running a workshop or a practical challenge with a group
● Hosting a visit to your workplace
● Taking a stall at one of our careers fairs or Freshers Fair
● Supporting a competition, a project or a student-led initiative
If you would like to get involved, we would be glad to hear from you. The most useful conversations usually start with what you are able to offer rather than what we might ask for, so do get in touch and we will find a fit.
Get in Touch
Students at our St Albans and Welwyn Garden City campuses can find the Enrichment Team in their campus student lounge. External companies interested in delivering enrichment opportunities or working with our students are welcome to contact our Enrichment Officers directly:
Sophie Allen – Sophie.Allen@oaklands.ac.uk
Mark McKay – Mark.Mckay@oaklands.ac.uk