Register your students
Benelux
Conditions
Terms and conditions of participation
The levels
The contest is open to primary and secondary school students who are learning English at school.
Terms and conditions
Registration is made through the school by the coordinator teacher. Individual entries are not accepted. Each school nominates a coordinator teacher to organize the contest at the school.
Schools that can register at least 35 participants are eligible. A minimum number of participants is required to cover the incompressible costs of organizing the event.
You can still register fewer students, but the school must pay the registration fee for 35 students.
Contact us for more information.
Participation fees
The participation fee is €5 per student.
These fees are used to finance the organization of the contest, the development of the training application and the purchase of the prizes. The Big Challenge does not benefit from any subsidies and is entirely financed by participation fees, from which 20% VAT must be deducted.
These fees cover :
- Creation, printing and dispatch of registration pack and posters
- Questions prepared by qualified English teachers
- Management of the database of all participants for the calculation of the score and the elaboration of the three rankings.
- Printing of 60,000 pages of results listings
- Purchase, manufacture and storage of prizes (112 pallets this year)
- Preparation of the 3,000 parcels by a service provider
- Delivery of these 3,000 parcels within 24/48 hours to the sites
- Current business expenses (offices, wages, etc.).
… Added to this :
- Development of the contest’s functionalities to ensure that all students can take the exam at the same time.
- development of teacher account functionalities to manage results in near real time
- The cost of servers based in Europe for secure data storage
We are experiencing very significant cost increases for all of the above. The paper shortage, which you may have heard about in the media, has caused the cost of paper to rise by over 30% in just a few months. The cost of sending parcels has also risen sharply, notably as a result of the increase in fuel prices. This explains why participation fees.
We fully understand the importance of keeping participation fees as low as possible, and make every effort to do so. That’s why, despite this extreme inflation We are maintaining the same rates since the creation of The Big Challenge in the Benelux zone.
Frequently asked questions
What levels are available?
The questionnaires are drawn up according to the level corresponding to the student's class. This level takes into account the CEFR requirements for school level. For more information on the correspondence between level and class, please consult the correspondence table below.
These levels correspond with the levels A0-B1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).
In order to help you choose the right contest level for your students, we suggest you follow the table below:
Who pays the registration fees?
The registration fees are paid by students’ parents or by the school, or sometimes both. Some municipalities help cover the costs as well.
How do I make a payment?
Registration fees can be paid by bank transfer.
All the information you need to pay will be sent to you once you have completed the registration form available on this page, and will also be provided on the acknowledgement of receipt of your registration.
I need an invoice
You can request an invoice for all or part of your participation in the Big Challenge. Please contact us.
Some of my students were absent on the day of the contest. Can they be refunded?
From September onwards, we place pre-orders for the purchase of prizes, which we confirm on the closing date for registrations. It is therefore absolutely impossible for us to make any refunds.
On the other hand, even if some students are absent on the day of the contest, the school will still receive prizes for all the students entered (present or not on the day of the competition), since these prizes have been purchased and cannot be stored for subsequent years.