When it comes to choosing a new school with your child there is now more choice than ever, and two schools in the Baltic Triangle are providing teaching and real-world experiences that not long ago would only have been the preserve of post-16 colleges and universities.
Liverpool Life Sciences UTC and The Studio School, both operated by the Northern Schools Trust and rated Good by Ofsted, offer young people aged 14-19 a secondary education designed to give them the practical skills, career coaching and real-world experience that they will need in whichever career they choose.
Each has a slightly different focus; Liverpool Life Sciences UTC educates future healthcare professionals, scientists and engineers, while The Studio allows students to specialise the digital world, including computing, games and animation.
As spokesperson Cristiana Costa puts it: “The beauty of our schools is that, yes, the national curriculum is taught, but it goes parallel with what we call PBL - project-based learning - which gives the students a sense of what companies are actually looking for, rather than just the theory.”
So, what does each school have to offer?
GCSE
At GCSE level, students at both schools study the core subjects - English (language and literature), maths and science - but they also choose from a much wider range of optional subjects than at most other schools.
Animal care, creative media, computer technology, engineering, business and enterprise, graphics, childcare - these specialised option choices support routes into careers in medicine, nursing, drug development, engineering and much more.
Students are offered impartial advice as they make their choices, and they will carry out project-based learning with major employers to support their studies in class.
Post-GCSE
In sixth form, students really get to specialise, giving them a bespoke route into their preferred career, and a head start on their peers at more traditional schools.
There are prepared pathways in a range of areas - at Liverpool Life Sciences UTC, students can follow subject combinations that will prepare them to work in life sciences, medicine/dentistry/veterinary, engineering and physical sciences, social sciences or health and care.
Meanwhile at The Studio School, they can choose from the Creative Pathway, which combines three A-levels covering art and design, graphics and lens-based media, or the Tech Pathway, a combination of A-levels and vocational training in computer science, IT and games and animation.
However, if they are unsure about their future goals, the schools can advise them on how best to keep their options open and find out what really inspires them, and students can mix and match subjects from both schools if they wish.
Major employers
Whichever subject combination they choose, students at Liverpool Life Sciences UTC and The Studio School are given access to a variety of project-based learning, placements and masterclasses with major employers, so that they get a real taste for the jobs and environments that they are passionate about.
Blue-chip partners include the pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, Amazon Web Services, Ford, BAC, Sellafield Ltd, MAST group (a Bootle-based international medical diagnostics supplier) and Unilever, as well as the Next Gen Skills Academy and its partners like Sony and games developers Creative Assembly and Lucid Games.
Incredible facilities
All of this learning is supported by some incredible facilities. Game design students have access to Unity and Unreal game engines, as well as a number of games machines from the last 40 years to illustrate the history of the field.
Aspiring healthcare professionals work in a mock hospital ward with SimMan 3G (an advanced, £70k patient simulator), real hospital beds and an anaesthesia machine donated by Dräger.
The innovation labs are kitted out with four category 2 microbiology safety cabinets worth around £12,000 each, for teaching students how to work safely with a range of microorganisms, and each year the school successfully applies for a term long loan of a Hitachi scanning electron microscope worth £80k from IRIS (the Institute for Research in Schools), through the Natural History Museum.
Meanwhile, budding vets work in modern labs and undertake workshops with working vets, and animal care students practise taking care of live animals including chickens, hamsters and even a bearded dragon.
It's this access and support which sees students succeed even before their careers begin. In 2023 alone, Liverpool Life Sciences UTC and The Studio School students won six awards for their projects - covering innovation, research, technology and medical science.
'Every day is an interview'
The emphasis at both schools is on preparedness for work - in fact, they say that the day-to-day atmosphere is more like that of a workplace than a school, with a busy, stimulating environment and a daily schedule of 9am-4pm.
One of the schools’ mottos is ‘every day is an interview’, so while GCSE students wear a uniform, sixth-formers are expected to come dressed for work, professionally presented in smart clothes.
If all of this sounds right for you or your child, then you can pay both schools a visit. They are putting on a joint open evening on Thursday, October 12 from 5-7pm, which will allow students and their parents or carers to tour the stunning, Grade 2 Listed building, hear a presentation from the principal, meet staff and students, and view examples of their work. You can register for the event here.
