Prizes up for grabs! Will your school win this year’s scoreboard competition?

It’s the beginning of the new academic year, and that means our scoreboard competition is officially underway! Read on to learn more about how it works and how to make a strong start.
What is Energy Sparks’ scoreboard competition?
Our annual scoreboard competition is open to all schools that have an active account with Energy Sparks; it is designed to encourage school communities to maximise energy savings by fostering a healthy sense of competition.
Points are awarded for:
- Completing energy saving actions or activities.
- Completing a whole programme of activities.
- Completing all suggested activities from an Energy Sparks audit.
To score points, staff or pupil users should log into their account and record the actions and activities their school has completed – find out how to do this.
Schools that provide further details such as descriptions, images and documents can earn extra points, and also put themselves in the running to win our coveted Pupil Power award (see below).
What are the prizes?
At the end of the 2025/26 academic year, we will be awarding the following prizes for our scoreboard competition:
- The school in first place on our national scoreboard will win £500
- The school in second place on our national scoreboard will win £300
- The school in third place on our national scoreboard will win £150
We will also be awarding our Pupil Power award (£400) to the school that provides the most compelling evidence of pupil-led action to achieve energy savings.
This year we are also introducing a MAT Champion award (£250) to the Multi-Academy Trust that provides the most compelling evidence of a Trust-wide energy saving campaign to achieve energy savings.
The competition will close at midnight on Tuesday 30th June 2026. Prizes should be spent on a sustainability project of the school’s own choosing. Read our full competition rules here.
How can I see my school’s scoreboard ranking?
Every time your school records a pupil activity or energy saving action, you will receive points.
The number of points your school has scored during the current academic year is displayed on your school’s dashboard:

You can also see how the national and regional rankings stand by visiting our scoreboards page.
If your school has joined Energy Sparks as part of a Multi-Academy Trust or Local Authority group, your score will also be shown on your group scoreboard. You can see this by clicking on the name of your Trust or group (which you will find at the top of any of your school’s pages).
Top tips for getting off to a good start
1. Put someone in charge of recording your pupil-led activities and adult-led actions
If you aren’t recording your completed activities and actions, then you can’t score points! We suggest putting your eco-team in charge of selecting and recording your pupil-led activities.
TIP: Don’t have an eco-team? Check out our guidance for setting one up
(30 points up for grabs!).
Not only will this ensure that activities get recorded, but it also fosters leadership skills and encourages your eco-team to make good use of the Energy Sparks tool to choose the activities that will make the most difference to your energy bills and carbon emissions. A responsible adult should check what the eco-team is recording from time to time, to ensure that it is a true reflection of the work done.
Alongside this, we also recommend that your school’s sustainability lead or site manager has responsibility for recording adult-led actions.
TIP: Your activity log can come in handy when you need to report
on your school’s sustainability actions.
2. Complete our programmes
You will score points for the individual activities within the programme as well as an additional 30 points once you have completed all the activities.
3. Join one of our free online training sessions
We offer free online training to all Energy Sparks schools to help you get the most out of our tool, engage your pupils in energy saving, and understand which actions and activities will be most relevant to your school.
Inspiration from last year’s Pupil Power prize winners!
In 2024/25, our Pupil Power award went to Meltham Moor Primary School, part of Together Learning Trust.
We really liked the way the school worked as a team and provided lots of evidence of the work they had done. Each class appointed an Energy Sparks representative, and they have been working closely with the caretaker to investigate thermostats as well as looking at Energy Sparks charts and checking unusual spikes in consumption with the school business manager.
“We have spoken to our caretaker and he has told us how important it is to not turn up the radiators. We have been round the school with him and set all the thermostatic radiators to number 3. We have spoken to each class and told them not to touch the settings and if a room gets too hot the teacher will turn off the radiator before opening the window.
“Our caretaker has turned down the main thermostat and we are meeting him again on Wednesday to walk around school again and make sure that people are not turning them back up.”
Importantly, the changes made have led to real savings.
In July, we reported that the school’s efforts had been repaid with 21% savings on their gas use over the previous 12 months, saving them about £1,400 and reducing emissions by about 7.5 tonnes CO2.
Following a very successful holiday switch off, the school has now reduced their gas use by 32% in the last 12 months (as their summer holiday gas consumption was 82% lower than last year, saving almost 2 tonnes of CO2 and around £300)!
Stay tuned for winter competitions!
In addition to our year-long scoreboard competition, we will also be running a winter heating competition. Sign up to our newsletter and follow us on social media to make sure you don’t miss out on the chance to win extra prizes!