Shine news

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.

We are very pleased to have received a large number of registrations for Shine already, and I have a bit of exciting news this week! (Ok, not as exciting as a pay-rise or a term’s sabbatical), but we will be launching a series of Shine forums for groups of up to 15 teachers at a time, to offer opportunities for you to ask questions and receive advice on how to go about running a project with your pupils, how to manage it and anything else relevant to getting your school publication or broadcast entry – ready.

For those of you new to Shine, a great big welcome! We are so excited to have new schools join the competition in 2022 – with the ultimate aim of recognising and rewarding tomorrow’s journalistic and creative talent.

This week we held our first in-person Shine Awards since the summer of 2019. It was unusual – not merely away from an under-renovation Stationers’ Hall but also a special winners lunch where everyone knew they’d won. But we did it and the joy in the beautiful room at the Guildhall where we met, at being together and celebrating young talent, was palpable.

Before the lunch, Vivianne Zhang Wei, our winner of Editor of the Year 2020, spoke to the guests about her time since winning. This is what she said…