Wexham School's computing lead has won £25,000 from the charity SHINE to build Logic MasterMind, an escape-room revision app for GCSE computer science.

A computing teacher at Wexham School in Slough has won £25,000 to build a revision platform for GCSE computer science. The money comes from Let Teachers SHINE, an annual funding competition run by the education charity SHINE.

The teacher is Valli Krishnappan, the school’s computing lead. The charity’s shortlist, published in February, lists “Vallimayil Krishnappan, Wexham School: Logic MasterMind”.

What the grant pays for

The project is called Logic MasterMind. SHINE’s winner profile describes it as a set of virtual “escape rooms”. Pupils answer rapid-fire questions and short challenges to unlock each room. Every room covers a different part of the GCSE course.

According to SHINE, the platform will:

  • run online and as a mobile app
  • let teachers tailor the content to different exam boards
  • cover programming, hardware, cybersecurity, Boolean logic and binary conversions
  • use high-frequency practice to help pupils remember and recall key topics

It is already being piloted with Year 10 and Year 11 pupils at the school, SHINE says.

“Students like games,” Krishnappan told the charity. “I feel like the escape room is a very good idea for holding students’ attention in class, and I want teachers to use this in their classrooms as part of regular lesson activities.”

The project is aimed squarely at pupils who find exam recall hardest. “This project would support disadvantaged learners because I could see, based on my experience, that usually they struggled with retrieval and cognitive load, especially under exam pressures,” she said.

One of eight winners

SHINE announced its 2026 winners on 25 June. Eight projects shared £170,000, picked from the 24 teachers on the February shortlist.

£25,000 is the most the competition offers. The charity’s 2026 launch advertised grants “of up to £25k”. SHINE’s application guidelines say grants run over two years. This round’s grants were awarded in summer 2026, for projects starting in September 2026.

A win for a Slough school is worth noting. SHINE describes itself as a charity for children from low-income backgrounds in the North of England. Its competition invites teachers from across England, but says it is particularly focused on ideas that can make a lasting difference in the North.

Wexham School is a mixed community secondary school on Norway Drive, SL2, for pupils aged 11 to 19. It has 1,212 pupils, according to the Department for Education’s Get Information about Schools register.

What it means for you

  • If your child is in Year 10 or 11 at Wexham School, they may already be using Logic MasterMind, since that is where SHINE says the pilot is running. The school is the place to ask about it.
  • If you teach in Slough and have an idea of your own, Let Teachers SHINE runs every year. The 2026 round opened on 20 October 2025 and closed on 14 January 2026. SHINE has not yet published dates for the next round, so check its Let Teachers SHINE pages from October.
  • For the wider picture on how Slough’s schools did this summer, see our reports on GCSE results and A-level results.

Longer term, Krishnappan hopes the platform can be shared across other schools. “I always dream big,” she told SHINE.

Sources