MAT Champion and Facilities Manager prizes – how to win
Following on from our recent article announcing the start of this year’s scoreboard competition, here we share further details on how to take part in our MAT Champion award, and how to nominate someone for our Facilities Manager prize.
Is your Multi-Academy Trust doing some amazing work with your schools to cut energy waste?
Or does your school have a brilliant estates/facilities staff member or caretaker who is working hard behind the scenes to improve energy efficiency?
If you answered yes to either of these questions, then you could be in with a chance of winning our MAT Champion award or Facilities Manager prize.
Here is how to enter…
Facilities Manager Prize
Whether it’s keeping a careful eye on heating timing, diligently resetting thermostats to the optimum temperature, or leading on weekend and holiday switch-off routines, estates/facilities staff and caretakers can single-handedly play a significant role in reducing energy waste in schools.
And yet this can often feel like a thankless task.
So if you are an Energy Sparks school and have someone amazing in your facilities team who is demonstrating outstanding energy management leadership, please consider nominating them for our new Facilities Manager prize. This is worth £250, with the prize money payable to the school (to be spent on a sustainability project).
All you need to do is complete our short nomination form before midnight on Sunday 20th June 2027.
You are also welcome to nominate yourself. To be eligible, the nominated person simply needs to have an Energy Sparks account, with their role listed as ‘building/site manager or caretaker’. If they don’t have an account yet, here’s how to add them (we’d encourage them to sign up for one of our induction training sessions too).
Note: We are aware that some schools don’t have a dedicated caretaker or facilities staff member. If that’s the case, but you feel like you have someone who fits the bill, simply note this on the nomination form. Full terms & conditions can be found here.
MAT Champion Award
Does your Multi-Academy Trust have some exciting plans for improving energy saving at your schools this year? Then why not put yourself forward for our MAT Champion Award (£250).
To take part:
- Set yourself an energy-saving challenge, or design a campaign. You can either plan your own, or you could use one of our suggestions below.
- Complete our award entry form by Friday 23rd April.
The Energy Sparks team will use your answers to draw up a shortlist. Shortlisted MATs will be contacted in due course to find out how the campaign/challenge is progressing.
Final judging of the competition will take place once the scoreboard competition closes on Sunday 20th June 2027. The winner will be chosen based on a combination of the percentage of schools that participate, the support given by the MAT and the relevant savings made. [Sarah: I have added this bit in bold (it doesn’t need to be bold), feel free to reword]
Energy saving challenges – ideas
Below are some ideas for energy-saving challenges you could set yourself. Alternatively, you could choose your own challenge/campaign.
Before selecting your challenge, we would encourage you to look at your Energy Sparks data to help you choose the challenge that will have the greatest potential impact on energy use at your schools.
Idea 1 – Get your schools to take part in our Winter Heat Saver competition
Great for:
- MATs who want to take advantage of Energy Sparks prizes
- MATs where tackling gas/heating waste is a high priority
How it works:
All Energy Sparks schools can enter our Winter Heat Saver competition, by completing one of the two below heating programmes between 1st November and 31st December 2026:
- Smart Schools Stay at 18 degrees – can be completed by any school, even if they don’t use gas heating or have gas data available on Energy Sparks.
- Give your heating a lie-in – can be completed by schools with gas data on Energy Sparks.
Schools with gas data
Schools that complete one of these programmes during that timeframe will be entered into a prize draw to win £100. Schools that have gas data on Energy Sparks are also eligible to win £100, which is awarded to the school that makes the greatest % reduction in gas use.
Idea 2 – Get your schools to complete our holiday switch-off programme
Great for:
- MATs that have high holiday energy use
- MATs that are looking for a straightforward, high-impact task that school communities can work on together, and which can support lasting behaviour change.
Our holiday switch-off programme can be found here.
Idea 3 – Increase school engagement with Energy Sparks
Great for:
- MATs with lots of schools that are new to Energy Sparks
- MATs where school participation is low
Here are some ideas of what you could ask schools to do as part of this challenge:
- Check and update users to make sure you have the right staff signed up
- Assign an Energy Sparks lead, responsible for managing users and encouraging uptake at the school
- Ensure business managers and caretakers/facilities teams are signed up for alerts
You might also want to encourage schools to complete and record one of our activities. The below are great entry points for schools:
- Create holiday switch off list – this is a high impact activity, which many students enjoy taking the lead on (with key staff members, such as facilities staff)
- Understand your energy use – when is your school occupied – this activity is a great way for students and staff to learn the basics of Energy Sparks while also revealing how much energy can be saved by reducing out-of-hours use.
- Appoint pupil energy monitors – another great way to reduce out-of-hours waste, while harnessing the power of your students to take action.
Idea 4 – Beat your baseload
Great for:
- MATs where tackling electricity waste is a high priority
- MATs where majority of schools don’t have gas data
- MATs where heating is well controlled
- MATs where schools are introducing new, energy-intensive electrical equipment (e.g. air conditioning, heat-pumps) and want to offset the increased energy use by cutting waste elsewhere
Our beat your baseload programme can be found here.
