Shine news

Bill Bowkett was part of a team that first won a Shine award back in 2016 when he was was Editor-in-Chief of the student magazine, Newsknight at the Knights Templar School.

He went on to win a life-enhancing scholarship from the Stationers’ Foundation. Here, Bill tells his story.

The gates are down and I hope 2022 is off to a good start for you all after the slog that was 2021. I expect your students are giddy with inspiration and creativity after their Christmas hols (yeah right!, I hear you say), but to help any teachers out there who are struggling to motivate their students or who want get a Shine entry together but have limited time available, this month we will be focusing on our multimedia and podcast categories.

If you are new to the competition and have not yet decided whether you will enter, the most important thing to do now is to get your team motivated to create. At last week’s teachers’ forum one of the strongest messages from Alan and Rosie, teachers with 7 and 1 years’ Shine experience respectively, was that once they opened the gates, the inspiration for content came rushing in.

Students already have their ideas and agendas and giving them the opportunity to communicate those ideas on a platform of their own creation is magical.

Our first Shine Teachers’ Forum via zoom took place last week and was a great success. The idea was to host a really useful meeting which offered loads of encouragement and advice to teachers new to running a student publication. Teachers Rosie and Alan, along with Anneliese, Shine event manager, hosted 9 teachers new to Shine from across the UK.

Last time I promised news on the teachers’ forums we are setting up to aid those new to the process of managing a student project. The exciting news is that we are off and running with this initiative and the first forum takes place next week. Places on the first three sessions are already fully booked, so if you haven’t yet done so, and would find it useful to talk to other teachers about how they go about organising and managing their student publication, please get in touch.

We are very pleased to have received a generous offer from QuarkXpress – all schools registering with Shine will receive a free sixth month QuarkXPress license and access to monthly webinars.