Shine news

After two years’ absence, Shine resumed celebrating the best of school journalism at Stationers’ Hall with a reception on 10 October for alumni – our former winners.

The highlight of the evening was an inspiring speech by one of those alumni, Bill Bowkett, who had been named ‘Most Outstanding Student’ at the awards back in 2017.

Since then Bill has embarked on a career in journalism – and we invited him to tell his story at the event.

After the student testimonials and teachers’ we’ve written about over the past few weeks, this seemed like a good moment to precis just why Shine is a great initiative for your school to get involved with.

This week we’re talking (and encouraging) great design.

We were extremely fortunate to have the fantastic Simon Esterson as a judge at this year’s Shine awards. Simon is an editorial designer and art director of Eye magazine and this week he has written some inspiring thoughts and helpful ideas which I feel sure will inspire your students.

You may be feeling inspired to get your students involved with Shine, but wonder how relevant your demographic of pupils is to this sort of competition.

The good news is that all demographics fit the brief: in this post we look at the categories that can be entered – and you only need to enter one to have a chance of winning an award.

Now you are starting to get your students organised to produce a team project for 2023, we thought we’d share a testimonial from Alex Mortimer, who was Shine scholar in 2021, winning The Terry Mansfield Award for Tomorrow’s Talent.

It will take only a few minutes of your time, but I guarantee it will inspire you.

‘Do it right, it runs itself’ is the motto of Alan Williams, formerly of Altrincham Grammar School for Boys, whose student publication has won several accolades under his overseeing eye.

He gives this advice on how to start up a student project:

I’m not the kind of person who tells other professionals what they should do. Instead, I will give an account of the things that I did in my ten years of running a Publications Committee. First off is to have a vision of the direction you want to go. Are you a political/opinion-based Publication or are you reflecting the things going on in your school community?