DGSChapter wins Best Online at the Shine School Media Awards
The Dartford Grammar School Journalism Society was recognised at the annual Shine School Media Awards, winning the overall award for Best Online with four highly commended awards in the categories of Best Stand-Alone Piece, Best Cartoon, Best Homepage and Best Overall Content, for the school’s student publication DGSChapter. We beat stiff opposition from hundreds of schools including Whitgift School, Kingsbridge Community College, City of London School and Bromsgrove School to clinch the top award.
The culmination and highlight of the year for our journalists would usually be a spectacular awards gala at Stationers’ Hall but due to the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown restrictions, student journalists across the country celebrated in the form of an online awards ceremony. This year, Chair and Deputy Chair of Shine, Alison Strachan and Richard Chapman hosted the celebrations.
We were shortlisted for two other awards, including Best Marketing Strategy with our Sub-Editor Joseph Bullock making the final nine nominees in the Shine Scholar category for most outstanding pupil. We were successful winning the overall Best Online Award, with Heathfield Community College recognised as highly commended for their publication.
The judges commented that DGSChapter is “a professional, polished online magazine with easy navigability, clean design that draws the reader in, and interesting, diverse content.”
Three of our journalists will also attend a winners’ workshop at the Times Education Supplement (TES) Headquarters in Red Lion Square, London as part of the prize, alongside the winners of the Best Newspaper and Best Magazine categories.
As part of receiving the Highly Commended award for Best Stand-Alone Piece for his political report, Joseph has been invited to participate in a one-to-one masterclass with author and Daily Telegraph journalist Professor Simon Heffer and senior journalism lecturer Dr Glenda Cooper from City University London.
Looking back on an incredible year, staff mentor Ms Cossey remarked: “This has been an incredible year for DGSChapter, the hard work of our team has really paid off and I am very proud of what has been accomplished by the students. A particular congratulations to everyone whose work was nominated and recognised at the Shine Awards.”
We invite you to watch the online awards presentation at: https://www.shine-schoolawards.org/shine-2020-winners/