Let Teachers SHINE winners 2025
Nine innovative education projects land share of £175,000 from SHINE
Children across the country are set to benefit from exciting new teaching approaches, thanks to nine innovative projects which have each won a share of more than £175,000 from this year’s Let Teachers SHINE awards.
The winning teachers have developed pioneering projects designed to boost the achievement of children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Now, with financial backing and expert support, they’ll have the opportunity to bring those ideas to life.
Run annually by the North of England education charity SHINE, the Let Teachers SHINE competition identifies and supports promising educational innovations.
In addition to funding, winners receive access to a comprehensive programme of development workshops and one-to-one support to help refine and scale their ideas.
Since the competition was first launched in 2012, SHINE has supported a wide range of impactful initiatives which have gone on to benefit millions of pupils nationwide. Previous success stories include Times Tables Rock Stars, Hegarty Maths, Vocabulous and Boromi.
This year’s winners are:
Joanne de Groot – Diagnostic Maths Assessment
A teacher from Merseyside has developed a fresh new way to test maths ability in the classroom, aiming to help primary school teachers pinpoint exactly where children need support.
Maths teacher Joanne de Groot, from Our Lady of Pity RC Primary, Greasby, has been awarded a Let Teachers SHINE grant of £20,000 to expand her Diagnostic Maths Assessment tool that measures primary school children’s strengths and weaknesses across ten key curriculum areas.
“The real benefit of this diagnostic test is being able to tailor support to an individual pupil’s needs,” explained Joanne. “The data can be analysed by various groupings of pupils to allow targeted group, class or even whole school intervention.”
She added: “We are absolutely thrilled to win this award. The support provided by SHINE is exactly what we need in order to move our project forward, and we are very excited by the prospect of working with SHINE.”
Sam Tallintire – The Mathematical CPD Library
An exciting teacher-led project aims to support maths teachers with an online library of quick video tutorials to build their confidence and subject knowledge.
Thanks to a £20,000 Let Teachers SHINE award, Sam Tallintire, from Southmoor Academy in Sunderland, is expanding her innovative project: The Mathematical CPD Library – an online platform offering short, high-quality video tutorials aimed at boosting maths teachers’ confidence and subject expertise (themathematicalcpdlibrary.com).
Sam said: “I wanted to create something that truly supports teachers – a resource designed by a teacher, for teachers.”
The Mathematical CPD Library provides quick, targeted tutorials – typically under 10 minutes long – tailored to the curriculum. These bite-sized lessons allow teachers to choose specific topics they want to improve, track their progress, and build confidence one step at a time.
After receiving an initial £5,000 development grant from SHINE last year, Sam created a version of the library aimed at primary school teachers. With this new funding, the platform will now grow to support secondary educators too.
“Receiving this funding was a real vote of confidence,” said Sam. “It reminds me that people believe in this idea and in the potential it has to make a real difference. Yes, building something like this is hard – at times it’s felt like climbing a mountain – but SHINE gives you the ropes and helps you keep going.”
Tom Rye – Fast Feedback
A pioneering new online resource seeks to speed up the marking and feedback process for teachers and students using AI-driven technology.
Tom Rye, a London-based secondary school Vice Principal has received a Let Teachers SHINE award of £20,000 to develop Fast Feedback – an AI-powered platform that automates assessment, reducing teacher workload and bringing feedback to students more quickly.
The platform will be open source, making it an affordable solution for schools. Tom has already developed a prototype of the platform (fastfeedback.co.uk).
“Timely feedback is important for pupils to make progress, yet traditional marking is often infrequent and delayed,” explained Tom.
Long term, Tom hopes Fast Feedback will become a widely used tool, making formative assessment more effective and manageable for teachers.
“Over the next 12 months, I aim to expand Fast Feedback into 10 more schools,” he said.
“I’m absolutely delighted. I’ve invested a huge amount of time developing Fast Feedback, working closely with teachers and pupils to shape it into a tool that genuinely supports learning.”
Jayne Webster and Caroline Peters – Dynamic Representations
Two teachers from Buckingham and Ellesmere Port have developed a groundbreaking new resource to bring maths to life for secondary school pupils, reducing anxiety and making concepts easier to understand.
Maths teachers Jayne Webster and Caroline Peters have been awarded £10,089 from Let Teachers SHINE to develop their digital platform, Dynamic Representations.
The platform features interactive digital versions of familiar classroom tools – such as plastic blocks and rods, known as manipulatives – to help students visualise and understand maths concepts and show the deep connections between number and algebra.
“When pupils at secondary school first encounter algebra and the variable ‘x’ they struggle with it because it’s abstract – they’re not given the pictures they were at primary to explain what it is,” explained Jayne.
Through the use of digital “maths manipulatives”, Jayne and Caroline’s goal is to make maths less stressful, and more accessible and engaging for pupils.
“We’re really excited to get started and see where we can go because we know how good it is,” added Jayne. “Having that support from SHINE to make this into something that can be used by teachers and students is just a dream.”
Ruth Coleman – Highfield Resilience Tracker
A transformational project aims to nurture and develop young children’s personal, social and emotional resilience from when they start nursery and move into primary school.
The Highfield Resilience Tracker, designed by Ipswich headteacher Ruth Coleman, has secured a Let Teachers SHINE award of £20,000 to roll out the resource to 66 nurseries that feed into 22 Co-op Academy primary schools in Greater Manchester, Stoke on Trent and Merseyside.
Ruth believes that early intervention will bring long term benefits for children.
“The goal is to start building resilience before children even start reception. The earlier you do this work with families and children, the bigger dividends it pays out,” said Ruth.
“If we can get them to a higher starting point at reception, we know we’ve set them on the right foot in their education,” added Ruth.
On receiving the SHINE award, Ruth said: “I was absolutely thrilled! It’s amazing to be able to make a difference to those communities. Over two years our project will work with 22 schools and 66 pre-schools – that’s an enormous number of children who can be positively impacted.”
Michelle Swallow and Amanda Leary – 360 Learning Lab
An innovative proposal from Bradford College aims to use immersive technology to boost engagement and literacy skills among disadvantaged students.
Michelle Swallow, Amanda Leary and Louise Dean’s innovative 360 Learning Lab project has been awarded £13,978 from Let Teachers SHINE to bring outside environments into the classroom using 360-degree videos and virtual reality (VR) headsets.
“Our project will create a free online library of 360-degree videos that can be used to immerse students in real-world settings like bustling London streets, the moody landscapes of Haworth, or the quiet solemnity of graveyards,” explained Amanda.
By virtually ‘placing’ students in these environments the project hopes to spark pupils’ imagination, and provide the sensory inspiration needed for creative writing tasks.
“It’s really exciting, to think that the work that you put in is going to bear fruit and we can actually do this,” remarked Michelle.
Phil Latham – The Endeavour Convening Partnership
A new initiative aims to bring schools and local businesses together to build better work and life chances for young people in Middlesbrough.
The Endeavour Convening Partnership has secured £22,200 from Let Teachers SHINE to establish a sustainable network of schools and local industry to improve opportunities for school leavers in the area.
“The purpose of the project is to address the complex social problems associated with the high number of young people not in education, employment, or training (NEET) and improve their future prospects,” explained Phil Latham, project lead and CEO of Endeavour Academies Trust.
“Our goal with the partnership is to raise the social mobility of young people in Middlesbrough, inspire greater aspiration, and provide them with more opportunities to succeed,” he added.
“It’s a really valuable initiative,” remarked Phil. “And we’re very indebted to SHINE for the support because it’s going to be really instrumental in making this happen.”
Nicola Crompton – Reading Champions
A new project in Carlisle aims to train social workers to use reading during home visits to help young children build their confidence and improve literacy skills.
Based at Cumberland Virtual School, the ‘Reading Champions’ project has secured a £25,000 Let Teachers SHINE award to support reading for pleasure amongst children experiencing vulnerability by training social workers to model reading to their families
“We know for so many children who’ve experienced trauma or neglect that home reading can be difficult,” explained Nicola Crompton, project author and lead.
“I believe we can sometimes underestimate the challenges parents face when reading to and hearing their child read,” she added. “Social workers can play a pivotal role in breaking down the barriers that prevent reading from occurring at home.”
On receiving the award, Nicola said: “I cannot tell you how thrilled I was to hear that my application was successful. With SHINE’s help we can reach more families even quicker to overcome these barriers, foster a love for reading, and improve children’s reading attainment.”
Richard McNicholas – United Learning x Boys’ Impact
A new initiative is soon to be launched at Barnsley Academy to further support boys at the school in developing positive self-identity and successfully forging a pathway to their future career of choice.
The project, which is led by Richard McNicholas, Vice Principal at Barnsley Academy, has been developed by the United Learning group of schools and Boys’ Impact, a network of practitioners aiming to improve the attainment of young men from disadvantaged backgrounds and contexts.
The initiative, which centres on how boys can take a more active role in their own development to effectively reach their goals, has received £25,000 from Let Teachers SHINE.
Richard said: “I’m excited about the opportunities this funding will bring. We want to make sure all our boys understand the value and importance of their education, set high aspirations for themselves, and see a clear pathway for their future.
“This award from SHINE really validates our work and efforts to date and motivates us all to keep making a positive difference.”
Fiona Spellman, CEO of SHINE, said: “I’m proud to support this incredible new range of innovations through Let Teachers SHINE.
“Teachers understand the realities of the classroom better than anyone, and their ideas are rooted in real-world challenges and opportunities. Their innovations bring fresh energy to education, and together they have the potential to make learning more engaging, inclusive, and effective.
“We are really excited to support these new winners and help evaluate and share the approaches that work best. Together we can build an education system that adapts, evolves, and truly serves all learners.”