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 2026/27 academic year, we will be awarding the following prizes for our scoreboard competition:
- The school in first place on our national scoreboard will win £300
- The school in second place on our national scoreboard will win £200
- The school in third place on our national scoreboard will win £150
- NEW! This year, any school that scores more than 500 points will be entered into a prize draw to win £150
We will also be awarding the following prizes this year:
- Our hotly-contested Pupil Power award (£400) will go to the school that provides the most compelling evidence of pupil-led action to achieve energy savings
- Our MAT Champion award (£250) will go to the Multi-Academy Trust that provides the most compelling evidence of a Trust-wide energy saving campaign to achieve energy savings*
- NEW! We will be awarding an Estates/Facilities Manager prize (£250) for the individual school estates manager that demonstrates outstanding energy management leadership*
- NEW! Local Authority Award (Wales only) – will go to the Welsh Local Authority that provides the most compelling evidence of a centrally-led campaign to achieve energy savings*
The competition will close at midnight on Sunday 20th June 2027. Prizes should be spent on a sustainability project of the school’s own choosing. Read our full competition rules here.
* Note that all prizes (including the Estates/Facilities Manager award) are payable to the school. Stay tuned for more details on how to compete for the MAT Champion, Local Authority and Estates/Facilities Manager awards.
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 2025/26, our Pupil Power award went to Horsford Primary – Holt Road. Their Eco Team has been incredibly active on energy, with activities ranging from gathering data about room temperatures and using this to successfully advocate for changes to heating settings, to creating switch-off lists and much more beyond.
We estimate that they have cut their electricity use by 9% and their gas by a brilliant 27% over the last year, saving almost 4 tonnes of CO2 and £3,800.
One of their students had this to say about what the prize meant to them:
“I’m happy about getting the prize because we put in hard work to make these changes for our school happen. We can buy new equipment for Eco Team to help us to continue our hard work. The new year 2s and year 1s will be able to join and be part of Eco Team. This is important because we need a big team to make changes and for our school and at home, and for the planet.”
In this interview, they share the secrets of their success. You can also learn more about why their approach was so successful in achieving energy savings here.
If you would like to be in with a chance of winning this much-coveted prize, do take a look at the level of detail they provided when recording their activities.
IMPORTANT NOTE: When uploading images showing pupils, please ensure that you have parental permission for these images to be used by Energy Sparks on our website and social media.
Hear from last year’s Scoreboard champions and MAT Champion
In this interview, we speak to two of our 2025/26 scoreboard competition champions – Oasis Academy Enfield and Stillness Infant School – about what motivated them to take part, and what lessons they would like to share with other schools.
You can also hear from last year’s MAT Champion, Aspire Academy Trust in Cornwall, where 73% of schools reduced their electricity use, saving 15 tonnes of carbon dioxide and £20,000. In the interview, they share what they and their schools did, and how they plan to build on their success.
Stay tuned for winter competitions…plus something new!
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!
We also recognise that throughout our network of schools are many inspiring students, whose creativity and ideas are helping to drive forward climate action and energy saving both at school and beyond. We are looking into the best way to celebrate them, and will share more later in the year.
