A MATHS teacher from Clacton has won £22,500 to fund a project which will help thousands of students.

Julia Smith will pick up the prize after winning the this year’s Let Teachers Shine competition

The competition is run by education charity Shine and is supported by the Times Educational Supplement.

It awards funding to teachers with innovative ideas to help disadvantaged students succeed in English, maths or science.

Julia said she was “absolutely chuffed” to win the funding for her 5Rsonline project, which will help students in the North East and Yorkshire who are resitting maths GCSE in post-16 education.

Julia will be working in partnership with Craven College, North Yorkshire, to deliver to her programme in colleges across the north, beginning this September.

“I was surprised I’d won because it’s a prestigious award but I think when you believe in something, you stick your neck out,” she said.

Julia’s project will give up to 150 teachers from at least 15 colleges free online access to a bespoke GCSE maths revision curriculum.

Around 3,000 students will log on to receive a daily dose of maths, curated by Julia and grounded in research.

Julia has trialled the programme in the classroom, where it has already inspired many students to success but having it online will allow her to reach far more students.

And 5Rsonline will particularly help students from disadvantaged backgrounds who have previously struggled with the subject.

“We know that the level of engagement, when we have trialled this in the classroom, was having a dramatic effect on students but the pandemic changed all that,” said Julia.

“We have AQA case studies where high-grade outcomes more than doubled. I firmly believe it can work online as well.

“People often say they don’t like maths. Well, I believe that needn’t be the case. It’s a case of practising until you cannot get it wrong - not just until you get it right and to practise a little bit every day.

“This programme is motivational, it’s engaging, and it’s up to the student which bits they want to do.

“If students can get that qualification, it can open doors that they don’t even realise are shut yet.”