2 July 2012: SHINE is delighted to announce that its highly praised SHINE on Saturday programme will be expanding into Manchester from October 2012. This is the result of a new £1 million partnership with the government-funded Education Endowment Foundation; it will also leverage the creative expertise of Manchester’s Hallé Orchestra.

SHINE on Manchester will see a total of eight new SHINE on Saturday programmes, involving 32 Manchester primary schools and supporting 800 disadvantaged children over the next three years.

This move marks a significant expansion of SHINE’s signature programme and will cost £1 million over the next three years. This cost has been split equally between SHINE and the Educational Endowment Foundation (EEF).

The original SHINE on Saturday programme has been widely praised by educational experts. Its work has been endorsed by Ofsted, New Philanthropy Capital and the National Foundation for Educational Research, among others.

Refining the model

The eight new SHINE on Manchester projects will be slightly different from the original programme in London. Specifically, they will be delivered in partnership with The Hallé Orchestra, whose Education Team has excellent links with local authorities and schools in Manchester. The Hallé also has a superb track record in delivering education programmes to children and young people, including those living in some of the hardest to reach communities in Greater Manchester.

Initially SHINE will be working closely with the Hallé’s Education Team to select schools to take part in the projects. They will then devise a range of creative and engaging learning activities, including visiting musicians, story tellers and educational visits. These will be developed with the participating schools to ensure that they complement the core curriculum.

SHINE on Manchester will take place for five hours on a Saturday for 25 weeks each year. As a result, it is slightly shorter (and cheaper) than the original, London-based version, which is a 30 week programme. This will enable us to test a more affordable model and see whether it is robust and successful enough to roll out more widely in future years.

About the EEF

The Educational Endowment Foundation is a grant-making charity, dedicated to raising the attainment of disadvantaged pupils in England. It does this by challenging educational disadvantage, sharing evidence and finding out what works. It has a particular focus on innovation; on scaling-up projects which are cost effective and replicable; and on independent and rigorous evaluation of its grants.

The EEF was founded in 2011 by The Sutton Trust in partnership with Impetus Trust. It is funded by a £125m grant from the Department for Education. With investment and fundraising income, the EEF intends to award as much as £200m over its 15-year life. It is accountable to the Department for Education but is an independent organisation with discretion over how it meets its charitable objectives.

A Manchester institution

The Hallé is a Manchester institution, fully weaved into the city’s cultural fabric. Its award-winning education and outreach programme reaches more than 35,000 children and young people every year. Most primary school children in Manchester will visit Bridgewater Hall, the home of the Hallé, at some point during their education.

Through its partnership schools programme, the Hallé accesses some of the hardest to reach communities across Greater Manchester.

The programme’s activities include:

• working with poets and story tellers
• linking work to the national curriculum
• developing educational resources related to literature, language, science, space travel, mathematics and geography.

The Hallé is therefore a superb partner for SHINE as we extend and adapt our SHINE on Saturday programme for Greater Manchester. We are very excited by this major new development in SHINE’s work and are already working closely with our Manchester partners to ensure that the programmes are ready to launch in October this year.