Schools Challenge


Schools' Challenge (UKSC)

President or CEO

Robert Grant and Ben Mooney

Location:

UK, Nationwide

Status

Active

Schools' Challenge, also known as the UKSC since 2022, is the largest and only active quiz competition for secondary schools in the UK. It was based on (but unaffiliated with) University Challenge and originally established in 1978. Despite eschewing multiple key modern quizbowl practices and not being considered that as a result, neither time nor isolation from the wider circuit has affected its popularity and it is considered the de facto national competition for quiz in the UK, involving a largely constant base of 200-300 schools every year.

Format

Match format

The match format of Schools' Challenge borrows heavily from its namesake, albeit with a few key differences. Tossups, or starters as they are known in the UK, are worth 10 points followed by three bonus questions worth a further 10 points each. Bouncebacks are permitted and common. If all three bonus questions are successfully answered, an extra 10 points are awarded to form a tossup-bonus round worth 50 points. In a match, 25 of these 'rounds' are played, before a timed five-minute 'lightning round', different to the previous rounds in that conferring time for bonuses is reduced from 10 to 4 seconds, is played to finish the match. If a match is tied, 'sudden death' tiebreakers are played until a winner is found. There are no picture or music rounds as in University Challenge.

Starters are, importantly, non-pyramidal at all levels (and rarely more than two lines even at national level) and there are no powers or points penalties for negs throughout the competition. As a result, buzzer speed has been emphasised historically as a a key component of success in Schools' Challenge to a degree unlike in other competitions and it cannot be considered, primarily due to this, to be quizbowl or even bad quizbowl despite ostensible similarities in format and academic focus. Bonuses are of the same style as comparable quizbowl tournaments though and their general difficulty tends to mirror with the NAQT HSNCT.

Competition format

Schools' Challenge is technically divided into two competitions: Junior Schools' Challenge, open only to those years covered by private preparatory schools in the UK (which in practice means the first two years of middle school) and Senior Schools' Challenge, open to all of secondary school age in the UK (in practice all years covered by middle and high schools in the US) and more prestigious and widely played than the former, which is largely restricted to a smaller circle of mainly private schools. A unique rule for the latter competition is that two students out of the team of four must be in Year 10 (ninth grade) or below, both a nod to historically a portion of rounds being reserved to these younger, 'junior' players and a way to prevent domination of teams by older students.

Question sets are written in-house by volunteer question writers unaffiliated with any other organisation within or outside the UK. While questions are broadly sequenced from regional to national level, difficulty can end up varying significantly within a packet and there is no set distribution of topics publicly or privately, even if previous packets are available to order- a quirk setting Schools’ Challenge apart from formal quizbowl. While that question focus is nevertheless of a generally strong academic standard, notably science and mathematics questions are far less common than in quizbowl with the gap being filled by other topics; primarily the arts, current events and trash.

Tournament format

The Schools' Challenge tournament structure is divided into sixteen regions- Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland all form one region each while England is divided into the remaining thirteen. The borders of these regions vary and the number of teams per region also varies- as a general rule, teams from the North of England make up a slight majority of entrants and there are at least eight teams per region. A one-day regional tournament is played in each region around November/December of each year (some regions play separate matches instead)- in some larger regions such as NW England, it is organised as a round robin before a final between the two highest scoring teams, but generally this is played as a straight knockout tournament in most regions. The 16 regional champions produced from this process then play an inter-regional fixture against the champions of a neighbouring region, with the winner making up one of eight National Finalists. This is the only way to qualify for the National Finals.

The National Finals are the final stage of the competition and are often hosted in London (as they were most recently) or in a central location in the UK (Warwick, for example, was used in 2019) by a friendly school in a one-day tournament. The Nationals also take a knockout form, but every team is guaranteed at least two games: the losers of each quarter-final then play against one another for the National Plate as a consolation prize in a parallel competition, as Plate semi-finalists. From this tournament, the National Champion for the year is then crowned. There is no limit apart from age from appearing more than once.

Equipment

Buzzers are of standard format- many schools use models sourced from the now-defunct Jaser Electronics, but alternatives such as Buzzin.live are more commonly used (mainly at lower levels) instead. There is also a growing trend of DIY buzzer sets made in-house, as well as limited use of American-made models such as Andersons'.

Notable successes

Schools' Challenge is open to all schools but is dominated by private schools and selective state schools to a lesser extent (notably Lancaster RGS won it three times in 2010, 2012 and 2013 as the latter). Non-selective state schools have never achieved meaningful success in the history of the competition despite making up an overwhelming majority of secondary schools in the UK. The most successful team in history is the Westminster School, with nine senior championships since 2005. Other successful schools include KES Birmingham with six championships and the Perse School Cambridge with four (and a record eight junior championships). They are also the only side to win the Senior and Junior competitions in one year, as they did this year (2023). These teams tend to be ever-presents at the Nationals and qualify almost every year.

Most schools in the competition are either partially or completely single-sex male, reflecting the education system in the UK, and the only all-female team to qualify for the nationals is Bournemouth School for Girls, who won the Plate in 2019.

Data on individual players is unknown and not kept as it is in quizbowl competitions- due to the speed-check nature of starters which promote generalism, one-person teams are very common so if data were kept, it would heavily reflect that.

External links

Schools Challenge

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