Visit the high-tech Liverpool schools where 'every day is an interview'

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