Working in partnership with the Co-op Foundation, Co-op Academies Secondaries from across the North competed in the final of the Envision Social Action Project.

Envision is a UK Charity who specialise in using social action as a vehicle for young people.

Following the launch in March, students from each academy worked together to create and plan their own social action campaign.

They each chose projects that focused on making a positive difference in their school or local community. They also had to bid for seed funding before starting their project.

They presented the results of their initiative in front of Dr Chris Tomlinson, CEO of Co-op Academies Trust, Nick Crofts, CEO of Co-op Foundation and Elizabeth Paulson, CEO of Envision UK.

Dr Chris Tomlinson said, “The quality of leadership in the Year 8s I saw today was exceptional. The programmes of social action they designed were breathtaking in quality. After seeing what our young people achieved today, I know the future of the country is in safe hands.”

Sarah Brown, Curriculum Development Manager at Envision said, “The Envision Final was a fantastic way to round-off 13 weeks of hard work from young people across 10 Co-op Academies. Teams presented their projects to a panel of esteemed judges, which ranged from body positivity and mental wellbeing through to cross-cultural celebration and anti-racism.

As the teams shared all their hard work we saw videos of in-school cultural celebrations, props from project activities, signs with research statistics, and were even given stickers – it was certainly a stiff competition, and the judges had a very difficult job on their hands!

It’s been a pleasure to work in partnership with the Co-op Foundation and Co-op Academies Trust. We’ve been endlessly impressed with every team, from their passion for and commitment to creating positive changes to issues they’ve identified in their school communities, to their incredible creativity in both ideas generation and project presentations.

Through their project delivery and at cross-school events we have seen impressive demonstrations of the four essential skills – communication, creativity, determination, and teamwork – which have been developed as the young people work away at their projects, and we’re truly blown away by how much these young people have achieved in just 13 weeks.”

The Runners Up were Co-op Academy Failsworth and Co-op Academy Leeds!

Failsworth’s initiative tackled improving student’s body positivity and opening up the conversation around identity.

Leeds’ students focused on celebrating their diversity and creating positive opportunities for the school community to share their varied cultural heritage.

https://twitter.com/CoopLeeds/status/1541328512447127555

The winners were Co-op Academy North Manchester whose project set out to create an anti-racist environment in their community.

They worked with North Manchester students and pupils at local primary schools to educate and empower them to be actively anti-racist.

https://twitter.com/Coop_Foundation/status/1540344087471181824

A huge well done to every academy for their fantastic campaigns!

Take a peek at the day in the pictures below.