End of Academic Year – Numbers and Overview

The end of summer means the ‘real’ new year is beginning! We always find September a great time to reflect on the school year that has passed. 2023-24 was a busy one in the education strand of PIE, but we’ve nearly doubled the number of participants and have been in 50% more schools in comparison to last year!

It’s really hard to summarise all that we do in schools – so in addition to the drop down days, 6/12/24 week programmes, transition events, careers events, teacher training, e-safety sessions and everything else….here’s some of our highlights:

L!STEN

Although ‘officially’ L!STEN is part of our community work, the Youth Summit is a time when it overlaps with our education strand. This year’s Youth Summit, once again, involved all secondary schools in Stockport being invited into the Town Hall for a day of youth voice, youth action and all things young people!

EPP

Our Enrichment Partnership Pilot has come to an end this academic year and it’s amazing to see how much Ciara and the team have achieved. All the schools involved had the chance to have a taster of one of our 6-week programmes of their choice. We also have a podcast about all thing’s enrichment, called The Enrichment Effect to help schools, teachers and businesses to find common grounds in terms of enrichment experiences in school.

Social action campaigns

We had lots of social action going on in schools this year! Generally, these encompass 5 in-school planning sessions, with a launch event towards the end. A lot of schools choose to continue our work after we’ve left, turning it into an extra curricular club (e.g Climate Club) or using our insights to create change in school.

Here is a summary of some of our campaigns and slogans:

-Healthy Relationships – ‘Let’s cage abuse’

-Slurs & Hate Crime – ‘Be the light. Speak what’s right’

-Climate action in school – ‘Clean green canteen’

-Embracing diversity – ‘Unity is full of Diversity’

-Healthy eating and movement – ‘Eat smart, move more’

-Reducing waste – ‘Fight waste, with haste’

-Misogyny & Sexism – ‘Break the silence, end the violence’

Trips & Visits

Broadening horizons and growing the cultural capital of our young people is of huge importance for us. Here are some of the locations of our trips and visits, with my favourite memory from each!

Liverpool City Centre – We visited the Christmas Markets which was a fun experience for the group. There was also a ferris wheel as part of the markets which many of them had never been on before. The screams from the top….I had to explain to members of the public that I hadn’t forced them on!

Old Trafford – Young people were fully out of their comfort zone here but I could see how much they had progressed with their confidence and communication simply by the mature way they were interacting with the tour guides. I was so proud!

ITV Studios – Always a fun day thanks to Gamal and the team! I was amazed how natural some of the group were at news reading and weather presenting. The whole group were supporting each other and it was just such a wholesome day!

Manchester City Centre – The kids being starving (as teenagers with their bottomless pits of stomachs are!) and getting to Nells Pizza and realising they had a whole ginormous pizza to themselves!

Trafford Centre – The girls were OBSESSED with the Primark in Manchester and just really wanted to do a quick supermarket sweep style shop in there, which we incorporated into the visit.

Scarborough Beach – I warned my group about the seagulls, after having my cute dinner for one on the beach rudely interrupted the night before, by some very scary seagulls. They thought I was being dramatic but our lunch turned out to be something from a comedic horror film. A seagull sat on my shoulder and stole my chips, which they thought was hilarious!

People’s History Museum – Seeing young people use a museum space for learning in a loud and expressive way was really lovely to see! This day really demystified the stereotype that museums are for quiet learning and a formal space, I loved that!

Summer Events

As well as our usual transition activities, we were especially busy in the Summer term helping coordinate two whole school events.

Rayner Stephens - Diversity Day

This has definitely been a highlight of my academic year! I had the pleasure of working with a small steering group to put their vision into action which culminated in a day full of music, movement, creativity and discussions.

Fairfield High School – Fairfest

Ciara has been working closely with Fairfield High School this year as part of the EPP project, which is why she was the perfect person to support them with their drop down day focused on wellbeing and movement. There were such a variety of activities, where local providers offered taster sessions for students (e.g fencing, archery, rock climbing) as well as a talk by a former Olympian, an inflatable obstacle course and musical performances!

What a great year it's been! Here's to another good one for 2025/26!