Press release

Teachers across England have great ideas every day to excite and engage their pupils. The Let Teachers SHINE competition, run by education charity SHINE (Support and Help in Education), gives ten teachers a chance to develop these ideas, offering grants of up to £15,000 for any successful submission aimed at raising the achievement of disadvantaged children.

Supported by Capita SIMS, the competition, now in its fourth year, is open to teachers from Friday 27 February to Monday 27 April 2015.

Teachers can win one of ten individual grants to develop their teaching idea and those deemed to have the most impact on pupils may receive further funds to have their scheme rolled out to other schools.

Phil Neal, managing director of Capita SIMS, says: “Over the past 12 months, we have had the pleasure of meeting and working with the winners of last year’s Let Teachers SHINE competition. Their passion and commitment to raising the achievement of their pupils has been inspirational and has demonstrated that, with just a small amount of financial backing, good teachers can take an innovative idea and make it have a big impact in the classroom.

“We are very pleased to be supporting the scheme again this year to ensure another group of teachers can develop their own ingenious solutions to closing the attainment gap. I urge all teachers who have a good teaching idea – however small – to enter.”

Deri O’Regan, assistant principal of Hatcham College, is just one of many teachers that successfully entered the Let Teachers SHINE competition in 2014. Deri has used the funds he received to establish a tutoring service where 80 sixth form students have been paid to deliver weekly one-to-one tutorials in English and maths to more than 130 younger students. Deri has since been awarded an additional grant of £20,000 to further develop his idea and roll it out at three other schools as a result of its success.

“The project has been a huge success on many levels,” says Deri. “It has provided large amounts of one-to-one tuition by our brightest sixth formers to some of our most deprived students. As well as helping the younger children, the project has given students great role models and something to aspire to. It has developed the skills of the sixth formers in setting up an enterprise project and learning about the co-operative business model. I hope it will also persuade some of them to think about teaching as a career.”

Paul Carbury, CEO of SHINE, says: “We are committed to raising the achievement of all children irrespective of their background or family income. We are delighted to be working in partnership with Capita SIMS on Let Teachers SHINE, as together we can help more students succeed.”

Those wishing to enter the Let Teachers SHINE competition must show that they have an idea or initiative that will help disadvantaged students raise their achievement levels in English, maths or science.

The competition is free to enter and runs from Friday 27 February to Monday 27 April 2015. The participants will be shortlisted before undertaking a series of interviews. The ten grants of up to £15,000 will be awarded in June 2015.

For more information, please visit www.capita-sims.co.uk/shine

Notes for editors:

The competition is only open to those who teach in England.
The competition is also being supported by the TES, Bloomberg and Teachers Assurance.

ENDS

Ref: CAP1522

Press contact:

To arrange interviews, for further information or images, please contact,

Olga Hadjilambri, Catherine Lane PR, 2nd Floor, 145-157 St John Street, London, EC1V 4PY.

Tel: 020 8351 2542. Email: olga@catherinelane.com

About Capita SIMS:

Capita SIMS is the leading supplier of information systems to the education sector, providing a range of software and services to schools and local authorities to help raise standards and reduce administration. Capita’s SIMS is the most popular management information system for schools and is used every day by more than 22,000 educational establishments in the UK.

Website: www.capita-sims.co.uk

Twitter: @CapitaSIMS

About SHINE (Support and Help in Education):

SHINE funds and develops additional educational initiatives which encourage underachieving children and young people to raise their academic attainment levels. SHINE works in partnership with primary and secondary state schools, the independent sector and world class universities to develop innovative projects.

Since August 2000, SHINE have committed £20 million to projects helping more than 100,000 children from over 4,000 schools.  SHINE rigorously monitor and evaluate the projects funded to ensure that they make a sustained and positive difference to the young lives they help.

Website: www.shinetrust.org.uk

Twitter: @shinetrustuk