◂ CONTENTS OTHER WORK · GMCA · P. 27 JULY 2026

OTHER WORK · THE DAY THE WORK WENT PUBLIC

MBacc Summit

Beeline?BEELINEThe Greater Manchester service that helps young people up to 25 explore careers and find a next step. was the centrepiece of the 2026 summit, in front of schools, employers and organisations from across Greater Manchester, in the same month the MBacc?MBACCThe Greater Manchester Baccalaureate, a framework that shows young people technical and academic routes into work. became national policy.

ROLEMANCHESTER · JULY 2026
JOB TITLEProgramme Manager, Youth Employment & Opportunity Digital Services
QUESTI ran the floor on the day, and was on stage with young people walking the audience through what we had released.
TEAMThe wider digital team, the wider YEO team, and young people from across the ten boroughs.
WHY IT MATTERED

The date everything pointed at

The summit was the fixed point the delivery plan was built backwards from. It decided what had to be finished, what could be learned afterwards, and what was not going to make it.

THE ROOMSchools, colleges, employers and partner organisations from all ten boroughs in one place. For most of them it was the first time they had seen the service working.
WHAT WAS DIFFERENT THIS YEARBeeline was the centrepiece of the day, and it landed in the same month the MBacc became national policy.

ON STAGE · YOUNG PEOPLE DID THE DEMONSTRATING

The release was walked through on stage by young people playing the Discovery Game. They had the cards, the tally and the microphone, and the room watched a real session. It is the Influence part of the Lundy model?LUNDY MODELA model for children and young people’s participation, built on four parts: space, voice, audience and influence. in its most literal form: the people who shaped it are the ones who present it to the people who fund it.

SPACE
VOICE
AUDIENCE
INFLUENCE ★
Three young people sit at a table on a lit stage with the Beeline Unplugged cards spread out between them, one of them mid-sentence and gesturing.
ON STAGEThe Discovery Game played live, cards out, in front of the room.
A wider view of the same stage: the three young people at the card table on the left, and a speaker at a lectern on the right addressing the audience.
THE MAIN STAGEThe walkthrough ran as part of the main stage programme.
ON THE FLOOR

Running the floor

Away from the stage, the toolkit was in people’s hands all day: schools and organisations trying the cards, asking what it costs them to run, and telling us what would stop them using it. Those conversations went into the design assurance?DESIGN ASSURANCECollecting feedback from partners and young people in one log, so each point leads to a fix, a research question or a decision. log the same way a session in a youth centre does.

On the event floor, a member of staff in a purple Beeline t-shirt talking with two young people in school uniform, one of them holding a phone.
ON THE FLOORIn the t-shirts, with the pack.
Another conversation on the event floor between staff in Beeline t-shirts and attendees, with the toolkit between them.
ON THE FLOORMost of the useful feedback arrived in conversations like this one.

PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE MBACC SUMMIT 2026, USED WITH CONSENT

THREE THINGS THE DAY SETTLED

  1. 01A public date is a design constraint. Knowing exactly what the room would see in July made every scoping argument in the months before it concrete.
  2. 02Watching a service used in front of an audience surfaces things no test session does. Both the parts people leaned in for and the parts that needed explaining went into the next round.
  3. 03Putting young people on the stage is what turns consultation into influence. Partners in the room remembered that.