Welcome to the Shine School Media Awards!
The Shine School Media Awards is a free national competition that rewards a diversity of talent from secondary schools across the UK who work on the writing, editing, design and fund-raising for a school newspaper, magazine or multimedia project such as a podcast or digital publication.
The annual culmination of each year’s Shine Awards is a gala ceremony held in central London every summer with student workshops and incredible guest speakers.
The significant benefits of starting a Shine project include an enrichment of the school curriculum, an incentive to creativity and the chance for pupils to win national recognition and in the process enrich their CV and applications for university or college.
The Shine Awards is an endeavour of The Stationers’ Foundation, the charitable arm of The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers, one of the UK’s ancient livery companies.
Latest news
12th March 2025
‘Like pebbles in a stream’ – writing for the arts with The Observer’s Vanessa Thorpe
In many of our Shine Award entries each year, we see reviews of recent music or films. Student opinions are the beating heart of every school magazine or newspaper, but structuring this sort of writing requires a different approach to news journalism.
To help, in this week’s episode of Ask the Expert we’ve sought outstanding advice from Vanessa Thorpe, the arts and media correspondent of The Observer.
Our entrants speak...
“Creating a student publication is a wonderful way to involve pupils across a school and enable them to express themselves and be part of a community. It is then even more rewarding to be involved with the Shine Awards which celebrates their success and offers inspirational advice from industry professionals.”
Craig Cole, Head of Graphics, Photography & Printing Reed’s School, Surrey
More feedback from schools