Here at PIE we keep busy through the summer break with a whole range of activities! We've put together a little overview and a flyer for those of you who might be interested in attending our free family activities: HAF: We've got a great programme of activities lined up for HAF this holiday, ranging from dancing to pond-dipping, culminating in a big party! If you think you might be eligible for a place, please contact gem.piper@live.co.uk Walking Wavers: Our walking group has

The PIE Team and our friend Shelley Metcalfe have been working on a new report - our Community Impact Report reviews and showcases six years of work in our Stockport Community! You can read the full report here on this page, and on our webpage here !

The Enrichment Effect , has now been available for a month! You may have seen on our socials that we've released a podcast, focussed on enrichment in it's many forms. Join our fabulous hosts, Beth Collins and Katie Lang , as they take you on a journey through the transformative power of enrichment that goes way beyond the traditional curriculum. It’s all about creating opportunities that shape lives, boost skills, and foster a genuine love of learning. Co-Ordinated by PIE's v

Over the past couple of months, our Step Up Mentor group has been meeting at the PIE office for their Saturday sessions – and they’ve been busy! In the first few sessions, we explored what it really means to be a mentor. The group talked about the kind of role models they want to be, what’s expected of them in the Step Up Mentor programme, and how they can support younger students through the big transition to secondary school. One of their biggest challenges so far? Planning

New Project Alert! Tameside Tracks is our brand new project. We are working with West Hill High School in Stalybridge on this community project which will last for 12 months. With funding from Transpennine Express, Tameside Tracks is going to be a student led social action project with the aim of improving the area in or around Stalybridge train station and will also look to try and encourage young people to use public transport. We had our first session with the group of Yea

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

The L!STEN Youth Alliance is a collaboration between PIE and Stockport Council. This work was commissioned in April 2023 and will run until March 2026. Over three years, we will look to ensure we are engaging with as many young people across Stockport as possible to ensure that voices are heard, youth issues are discussed, and that this information is appropriately fed back to members of the council to help inform future planning. At the end of each year we publish a report,

As we are coming to the end of this section of the programme, let's have a look back, with Ciara, at what this amazing group has done... From November, we have collaborated with the fabulous Jen from Make Good (CIC) to deliver fortnightly sessions for a group of care experienced young people. These sessions have created a space for the young people to discuss their experiences as a care experienced young person and relate to others with similar experiences. Throughout the 1

As a Social Enterprise, PIE not only has a team who deliver our programmes and do everything else that makes the company work, but also a...

Last month we completed our most recent Wave of Change programme, so we thought we'd take a look at our years of delivering this programme! We first launched the Wave of Change in partnership with The Goodness Collective in March 2020. After a couple of initial in person sessions, we closed down along with the rest of the world, and quickly shifted our sessions online. This involved not only teaching the women taking part to use Zoom for sessions, but ourselves as well! We ra

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

The 11th of March saw our past and present Wavers gathering in Stockport to celebrate International Women’s Day. Inspired by our Creative Wavers and their talents; so many of our women have found employment, self employment and comfort through the tough times with crafting so what better way to celebrate how amazing women are by getting our craft on! We had the lovely Kimmy from Self Care Creatives running journalling & colouring activities. Next we had Affirmations with Sara

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

Last week Holiday Club was back for half term thanks to the Household Support Fund. On Monday we were at Stockport County with our friends from the Community Trust for our teen offer we played fifa, darts, pool and ate pizza. On Tuesday we took a group to Marple Cinema to watch Moana 2! We opened the event up to the local community it was great to welcome almost 100 faces to the cinema! Our final activity of the week was our craft day! We were joined by Jen who helped us make

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