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Serious Fun on Saturdays

A benchmark for excellence in independent-state sector partnerships

Working with SHINE, some of the UK’s top independent schools open their doors to lend disadvantaged local children their superb facilities for some serious, fun and structured educational support. This partnership approach benefits everybody involved, while the generosity of the host schools makes the programme incredibly cost-effective. But the biggest winners are the kids themselves, who get to use some amazing kit for exciting, practical learning that starts them thinking for themselves.

If you’d like to know more, Serious Fun on Saturday is featured in the Independent and in SHINE’s 2012 Supporters’ Magazine. Download Now

How it works

Serious Fun on Saturdays is a programme hosted by independent schools for students from local state schools who are unlikely to be able to access additional educational support at home.

Primary and secondary students attend sessions that are designed to be serious - with a focus on learning - but also fun, taking place in a new and exciting environment and using creative and alternative teaching methods.

Critical to the success of Serious Fun on Saturdays is a focus on developing partnerships at every level:

• with schools: independent schools working with state schools
• with teachers: secondary and primary, state and independent teachers working together
• with children and young people: students from independent schools working with and mentoring students from local state schools

What it aims to do

Each student is given the opportunity to:

• make use of first-class premises, facilities and resources
• enrich and extend their learning
• meet and mix with students from other schools and of other ages

In this way the Serious Fun on Saturdays programme encourages high achievement and personal development and helps to equip students for transition from primary to secondary school and from secondary to further or higher education.

SHINE's support

SHINE is currently funding Serious Fun on Saturdays programmes for around 800 students a year from over 100 state schools.

A grant to start the first Serious Fun on Saturdays programme was made to St Paul's and Latymer Upper Schools in 2003. Since then SHINE grants have been approved for a further thirty schemes at the following schools: Alleyn’s School, The American School in London, Blackheath High School, Bolton School, Canford, City of London School for Girls, Dulwich College, Eltham College, Eton College, Farnborough Hill School, Forest School, Hampton School, Highgate School, James Allen’s Girls’ School, The John Lyon and Harrow Schools, King's Ely, Lady Eleanor Holles School, Latymer Upper School, Manchester Grammar School, Merchant Taylors’ Girls School, Merchant Taylors' Northwood, Norwich School, Perse School, Rugby, Sheffield High School for Girls, Tonbridge School, Westminster School, Winchester College and Withington Girls’ School.

SHINE works with each of the Serious Fun on Saturdays schemes to ensure they are monitored and evaluated effectively. This includes looking at national standardised predictions and test results (SATs, NFER maths and the Suffolk reading test), teacher assessments, work samples, student feedback, internal evaluations of teaching and learning and independent evaluations (e.g. by the Institute of Education). SHINE also requests that staff provide exemplar programme materials to aid other schools to start new programmes.