Let Teachers SHINE 2013 – the winners

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After reading 130 applications and interviewing 28 teachers, representatives from SHINE, the TES and Bloomberg have now chosen the 11 superb winners of Let Teachers SHINE 2013. And in partnership with the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, we have provided further funding to three of last year’s winners.

Let Teachers SHINE logo resizedThis year we expanded the scope of Let Teachers SHINE to include science with maths and English. And alongside our valued partners at TES, we also teamed up with Bloomberg, which has made a generous grant to fund winners that use technology in an exciting way.

In total, grants worth £123,518 have been awarded to innovative maths, literacy and science projects at schools across England. The successful teachers work at both primary and secondary schools located across the country – from Bromley to Barnsley and from Liverpool to Lewisham.

The successful projects span a broad range of teaching techniques, including metronomes, cooking, GPS technology, new apps and the Raspberry Pi computer. Each one offers a fresh approach to reinforcing key skills in the core subjects of English, maths and science.

The winning teachers and their pilot projects are:

  • Louise Cline in Sheffield, who will use Tibetan debating techniques (which involve actions as well as words) to help improve communication skills among primary students
  • David Fallis in Barnsley, who is expanding a successful pilot project called ‘active phonics’, which taps into young people’s love of sport to improve their reading skills
  • Luisa Hargreaves in Wimbledon, who wants to boost interest in science, technology, engineering and maths by challenging girls to research, create and market a new cosmetic product
  • John Hayes in Manchester, who is producing a mobile app to give students an extra learning resource outside school hours to help them with their English homework
  • James Graham in Bromley, who will use cooking – and its need for measurements, areas, volumes etc. – to improve the maths skills of struggling 11-12 year olds
  • Louise Jackson in Doncaster, whose project stretches 13-14 year old students through a series of writing projects, such as sports journalism, advertising and children’s stories
  • Barbara Marshall in Devon, whose winning project uses an interactive metronome to improve the reading skills of primary children with special educational needs
  • Deri O’Regan in Lewisham, which is providing struggling students with weekly maths tuition bought from a new co-operative set up by the school’s sixth form maths students
  • Fanoula Smith in Tower Hamlets, who will use the Raspberry Pi computer and the Switched on ICT curriculum to enable primary children to improve their maths and literacy skills
  • Claire Vowell in Somerset, where children will follow stories by exploring their local area using tablets, GPS technology and QR codes to unlock each chapter
  • Larry Wilson in Liverpool, who is developing a successful pilot project that created an online community to provide e-tutoring and extra study support for students approaching GCSEs

All 11 pilots will begin in September; next summer we will review the progress each pilot has made; further funding may then be made available for the most successful schemes.

Further funding for 2012 winners

And that’s exactly what we’ve done with the winners from the 2012 contest. esmee-fairbairn-foundation logo reformattedWorking with the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, we have reviewed each of our 2012 winners. We are delighted to provide further funding to three projects, which have all demonstrated impressive success over the past year and have realistic plans for expansion in the near future.

  • Patrick Carroll in Doncaster, whose augmented reality mobile app that shows children reading and performing their written work has proved highly successful in improving reading and writing skills
  • Rhian Davies in Stockport, whose use of gifted GCSE maths students to support struggling 11-14 year olds in has seen participants achieve around twice the progress of similar students
  • Colin Hegarty in London, whose YouTube maths channel, and use of iPads in class and revision sessions has revolutionised maths teaching at his school and helped to deliver its best-ever exam results

In addition, the  Colebrook Centre for Evidence and Implementation will be conducting a rigorous assessment of Let Teachers SHINE over the next three years. The review will look into the impact achieved by the winning projects, as well as the way we run the contest, to ensure that we are making the greatest possible difference to the students we support.

Congratulations

Congratulations to these three projects and, of course, all 11 winners of Let Teachers SHINE 2013. Many thanks to everybody who sent in an application or spread the word about the competition, either on Twitter or through more time-honoured methods.

Final thanks must go to our distinguished panel of judges: SHINE Trustees Caroline Whalley, Henry Bedford and Bridget Walsh; Jon Severs, commissioning editor of TESProfessional, and Gerald Walker, founding member of Bloomberg Ventures, which invests in new tech businesses.