On Friday 20 January, some of our pupils met King Charles III on a special trip to the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Manchester.

We visited the Heron House offices to participate in special lessons intended to help inspire the next generation of mathematicians, codebreakers and engineers from the North West!

His Majesty was previously the patron of the UK intelligence services, during his former role as the Prince of Wales. King Charles joined the pupils in their lesson, talking with them to learn more about their code breaking activities and greeting GCHQ staff members. 

Pupils also met the Director of GCHQ, Sir Jeremy Fleming, who welcomed them and talked about the innovative, hi-tech space designed to enable intelligence staff to keep UK citizens safe.

Mrs Smith said:

“This was an amazing opportunity for our pupils to participate in high quality, high challenge mathematical and linguistic tasks in a high-tech environment. The opportunity to meet HM King Charles III raised the whole event to a totally new level!”

CEO of Co-op Academies Trust, Dr Chris Tomlinson, said:

“A fantastic opportunity for our pupils to attend a special lesson at GCHQ, focussed on problem-solving and code-breaking. It’s great to see GCHQ opening their offices to showcase the type of opportunities available to our brilliant students from Co-op Academy New Islington who have the potential to be our future mathematicians that the country needs. 

“The activities focussed on developing their code-breaking skills using puzzles from the agency’s book, Puzzles for Spies. They left with gifted copies of the book, feeling inspired and excited. What a privilege that the day’s guest of honour was none other than HM King Charles III himself, who interacted with the pupils to discuss the day’s activities.”