Stretched to the limit…?

Hello and happy new (school) year from Shine! I hope you all had relaxed and enjoyable summer holidays.

My daughter has started Year 9 and I have been discussing with her the benefits of being involved in a school magazine as she finds the idea of an opportunity to express opinion outside of curriculum restrictions very appealing.

As a vehicle for self-expression, school magazines offer so much to the students and often can open up those who are otherwise challenged by academia and an increasingly prescriptive curriculum. If you have a moment, please read this feature by Katherine Whitbourn, a Shine committee member and journalist, about school magazines.

A great idea you may say, but how do we go about it when we are stretched to the limits already? We offer a lot of useful information on how to start a project on this website.

In addition to this we will be visiting some schools this year to offer a ‘Shine roadshow’ workshop on running a pupil managed magazine, and use the opportunity to forge links between schools and communications industries across the country by inviting them to attend. We can’t visit every school of course so we will video these workshops so that the film can be sent out to any school who is interested in entering the competition – watch this space!

This is Shine’s 10th anniversary year so we want to make it a bumper, building on our past successes and celebrating more of tomorrow’s talent across the country. If you are one of our regulars, please spread the word to other schools in your borough or county, or if you have yet to enter, let us know how we can best assist you in getting a project off the ground. We will be spreading the word further by collaborating with the folks from ‘Young Writers’ competition, who have kindly offered to tell the schools they work with about Shine. You may already have heard of them, but check them out here if not.

I will be in touch again soon with more exciting news on what Shine 2020 has to offer!

As ever, get in touch on email via shine@stationers.org

Alison Strachan
Chair of Shine