Did you know that during lockdown, PIE continued to work with people throughout the North West to help offer activities, support and guidance during lockdown and the school closures?
Here's just a brief summary of what we have been up to since March..
- Way back in March and April, we produced and delivered learning resource packs including stationary, reading books and printed learning activities to over 300 young people across Greater Manchester.
- Starting on the first day of school closures on March 23rd, we designed and published daily online tasks and challenges to help young people develop the five PIE slices. We did this for 10 weeks, with all tasks being available completely free for parents, teachers and students to access and use. This included offering different activities for secondary school, and early years students.
Here are Martha and Fred enjoying some of the activities at home in Preston, and Eric completing some of the tasks in Australia!
- With support from the fantastic 'We Love Manchester' charity, we led the 'PIE Slice Challenge' with 45 students from 2 Manchester high schools. This has included sending weekly tasks/ challenges to students, and then rewarding the best work. Students completing the full challenge received a reward/ certificate at the end of the school year.
- The team led weekly Zoom calls with ten groups of students from two Manchester high schools. As well as including weekly check ins, these included weekly quizzes/ games and other activities. It was a great way to keep young people connected, and support our partner schools to help check in with young people and help them focus on their wellbeing.
- We continued to lead our Empower sessions, working remotely with students from last years Step Up programme to train them to become peer mentors. This included students producing a podcast remotely, offering advice to Year 6 students. You can listen to their podcast here! https://anchor.fm/pie4
These same students then ran a virtual online event which provided activities, online competitions and even free afternoon teas for over 50 families across Stockport!
- Despite not being able to meet up as a group, we launched this years Step Up transition programme remotely with our friends at Stockport Council and Stockport County Community Foundation. Not only did we deliver learning packs and activities to 20 young people in Stockport, but we also led some of our sessions virtually via Zoom.
- Rather than leading in person sessions with our partners at Sale Sharks Advantage programme, we developed a 3 day NEET programme to be delivered remotely to 20 learners.
- Along with the amazing Goodness Collective, we worked throughout lockdown to deliver the Wave of Change programme ( supporting out of work in Stockport) remotely by hosting weekly zoom chats, 121 coaching calls, video workshops and delivering workshop packs/ activities. Women highlighted the importance and benefit of this emotional support during lockdown.
We are now busy getting ready for the launch of a whole range of exciting new projects in the next few weeks... watch this space to find out more!