On Wednesday 14th May CEO Beth was invited to attend a royal garden party at Buckingham Palace in recognition of services to education - what a day! She (and husband James) joined 7000 other people from the field of education and skills to enjoy an afternoon in the royal gardens, she's told us all about it in this week's blog: The day started by passing through security to join other guests stood outside the iconic gates of the palace. Everyone waited in anticipation to see

PIE and Starting Point Community Learning Partnership , have partnered up to run a new digital programme in Stockport with thanks to funding from GM Strengthening Communities Fund ! This pilot programme 'Digital Leap' will be focusing on supporting families with the digital leap from primary to secondary school. The difference between platforms, apps and ways of communication from primary to secondary school can be difficult to navigate for not only pupils but parents/carers

We’re super excited to share that we have been successful in our application for the Hate Crime Awareness grant from Manchester City Council. Following the discussions and learning from our shorter sessions last year at St Anne’s High School, Bramhall High School, Aquinas College and Chorlton High School we knew there was more work to do in terms of young people and hate crime! This year we are working with Burnage Academy for Boys and The East Manchester Academy to make a di

Over the last few weeks our Year 10 Future Ready students from Unity Academy Blackpool have descended upon Manchester on their annual PIE visits! Armed with all the waterproof gear (under Munji’s guidance) no one was prepared for the two days of clear blue skies and sunshine. The boys group were lucky enough to be greeted with hot drinks at Oxford Road Train Station before they made their journey to Old Trafford. Thank you to Café Nero on Oxford Road, not many coffee shops wo

After a lot of planning with Stockport Academy , we helped with organising and delivering activities for Stockport Academy's drop down day for their Year 9 pupils. With support from the Violence Reduction Unit in Stockport , PIE organised for the different organisations in the VRU Alliance to deliver sessions for the drop down day. The organisations who delivered sessions on the day were Talk, Listen, Change, Make a Difference, and Stockport County Community Trust. The pupil

We have been doing the Enrichment Partnership Pilot project for nearly a year! Time flies! It has been great to look back and see what we have achieved for this project. To highlight some of the great work we have done, it is important to talk about the schools we have created relationships with for this project. They have been amazing communicating with us, sharing what they want for their schools in terms of enrichment, and the chance to speak to students themselves about w

Last week we held our s econd annual Youth Summit in Stockport Town Hall . 15 secondary schools and 2 colleges came together to consider mental health and wellbeing , with an aim for young people to share their ideas and views with key representatives at Stockport Council. It was an incredible day with around 150 young people , representing so many areas of Stockport all under one roof! All the students were well-prepared for the day and eager to get started! Beth and Munji o

On Thursday 30th January at Edgar Wood Academy (Altus Education Partnership) , Rochdale we ran another exciting careers event! This is our third speed networking event in partnership with AutoTrader , for which the whole of Year 9 attended - that was 197 students . Over 40 local professionals attended , it was a great variety; from hairdressers to police officers, directors to archaeologists, fashion designers to engineers! The students each all had one hour to attend the ev

This year we've been working closely with Becky Fox at Leeds Co-Op Academy to develop a bespoke programme for a specific cohort of Year 7 girls. to develop their ambitions, confidence and sense of belonging. I absolutely love any time I spend at Leeds Co-Op Academy - the diversity, quirky nature and gratitude of the students always remind me of my time teaching in London! My first session with the girls was focused on developing a rapport. It's important that they got to know

Keep an eye out for our new Enrichment Podcast! During the end of 2024 we have been busy creating a podcast working with the fabulous MIC Media. This podcast is part of the Enrichment Partnership Pilot programme and it is all about enrichment for young people in schools and enriching opportunities in the community. We have created this podcast for staff in schools, teachers and enrichment providers to learn more about how they may develop enrichment opportunities for young p

This year we compiled an end of year report, which incorporated some of our statistics from the whole 7 years of our existence! It was a joy compiling this data, and reflecting on not only this year, but looking back to see how far we've come. Here's a few headlines from 2024: - We have worked with record breaking numbers of people both in community and schools. - We have continued to grow our team, welcoming Ciara. - We have worked with numerous young volunteers . - We hav

To round off our blogging year we wanted to share our highlights with you!

Seven years ago today PIE became a registered company - a proud Social Enterprise looking to support young people to become future ready. Delivery started in January 2018 with pilot Future Ready programmes at Chorlton High, then followed by work at Harrop Fold, Manchester Communication Academy and The East Manchester Academy. We were proud to receive the 'Do It' Award and funding from UnLtd to start our journey which helped to fund initial resources for programmes and core se

We have lots of exciting programmes running in school at the moment, so an Autumn term update is definitely needed! Our funding from CAN has allowed us to complete The Climate Project in both Cheadle Hulme High School and Stockport School. Both groups have been full of ideas and full of enthusiasm from our very first session so it’s clear that their climate action campaigns will be successful! Cheadle Hulme High School have chosen to focus on reducing waste in their school co

November is here, and that means our Christmas initiatives are in full swing! We are excited to announce the launch of our Christmas campaign aimed at raising funds to support families who would otherwise face a bleak Christmas morning. If you'd like to contribute, you can make a donation through this link or just click the PIE Christmas Hat! We’re kicking things off on Saturday, November 30th, with our annual Christmas movie morning at the Regent Cinema in Marple. This even

Anyone who works in education knows that September is the real ‘new’ year! So it’s time for a reflection on our last academic year and what we’ve got lined up this year. New programmes Following our super successful pilot of This Matters in Leeds, we delivered this programme over at Unity Academy in Blackpool. It was great to see how well the cohort responded to the sessions, considering the demographics are vastly different to our group in Leeds! Pilot programmes Our new pro

Last Thursday we hosted the first ever Enrichment Partnership Pilot Networking Lunch in Tameside which was held at the Office and Tech Space in Dukinfield. We held this event to launch the EPP project we have been working on in Tameside since February this year and to give local schools, organisations and businesses a chance to network and create relationships which will then improve enrichment opportunities and experiences for the young people of Tameside. We had a great t

Over the past few months we have been busy looking at securing funding and contracts for upcoming projects. We have so many existing projects continuing, as well as some exciting new projects starting, and we wanted to tell you a little bit about what we are going to be up to! AutoTrader UK - We have recently confirmed a new partnership with AutoTrader UK for PIE to deliver outreach and careers events across the North West with the support of AutoTrader volunteers. We can't

Our community programmes. this summer, have been a hive of activity, so we wanted to show you all the organisations we've been working with! Here's some clickable links! Forum Theatre Marple Regent Cinema Projekts MCR Skatepark Jen Samani Starz Dance Academy Living Nature Collective Stockport County Community Foundation Start Point Cafe Inspiring Animal Therapy RD Football Coaching Vernon Building Society Easy Peel Stockport Library Services Arc Centre Proud Trust Willmott Di

It's a year since we moved into our Office at the Flourish Community Hub, upstairs at Heaton Chapel Train Station! Last July we moved in after four years of being a part of the Federation Coworking community, firstly based in the Federation building and then in the home of Cooperatives UK. But as our team grew, it was time to look for a new office space that fitted our needs! So we found our new home, as a team. Until then, we had zero storage for our many resources, so the s