SHINE’s mission To raise the attainment of children from low income homes across the Northern Powerhouse. SHINE’s vision For all children across the Northern Powerhouse to achieve the best possible qualifications so they can leave school with real choices for their future lives. Our story so far SHINE was first established in 1999 by a group of committed philanthropists who wanted to improve the attainment of children from low income homes. Since then, we have invested over £27 million in projects benefiting almost a million children from 15,000 schools. For our first 18 years, we focused the majority of our funding and support in areas of high deprivation in London. At this time, just 22% of children from disadvantaged backgrounds in London were achieving the results they needed to access further education or high-quality employment. From 1999 to 2017, SHINE acted as an important driving force behind the turnaround in London schools. We helped hundreds of London teachers to run their own programmes in schools, over the weekends, after school and during the summer holidays, helping them to innovate and experiment in their practice and develop as outstanding teachers and leaders in the classroom. We also identified, funded and then helped to scale up some of the most successful educational programmes across the capital. SHINE was an early adopter of Teach First, IntoUniversity and Every Child a Reader, all of which have made a lasting impact on the London education system. Today, the capital boasts better results than any other English region, and the proportion of children achieving good qualifications at school has doubled. More than this, there are now a plethora of other organisations who have been set up precisely to build upon and sustain the educational future of London school children. Unfortunately, these same successes have not been felt in all other parts of England. The Northern Powerhouse region overall is lagging behind London in terms of its educational results, and this is a key factor holding back the economic and social prosperity of the region. Faced with this stark and growing regional inequality, in 2017 SHINE took a bold decision, to leave London and refocus on the North. Find out more about our Vision for Education Across the Northern Powerhouse, read our Strategy Framework to 2025, our annual accounts, and other corporate information.