Contest

The Contest

The main aim of The Big Challenge is to encourage the learning of English through fun and educational activities, and to support the teaching of English in schools.

The Big Challenge Contest is a Europe-wide English language contest for primary and secondary school students, enabling them to make progress in the language while having fun at the same time.

The Contest takes place in spring, coming in as a highlight after the activities and events throughout the year.
A great motivational tool, the contest is taken by over 500 000 students every year in Europe.

From primary to secondary school

Multiple-choice questionnaire

45-minute test at the school

Fee : 10€ / student

No losers, everyone wins!

The Contest Calendar

17 Dec.

Early bird

registration

21 Feb.

End of registration

March 2 – March 20, 2026

Contest

April 23

Results & corrections

April 23

Dispatch of prizes

Test Formats

The contest is available in a choice of two formats.

The Online format on a computer, laptop or tablet. Each student needs to have access to one of those devices, headphones for the audio questions and to the internet.

The flexible format is on paper. You have access to the same contest questions beforehand, so you can print out the questions and the answer sheets, or project them in the classroom. The answer sheets are then uploaded in your account.

Both formats take place at school. You can organise as many sessions as you need so everyone can take part.

The Content of the Test

Test questions cover vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and civilization.

In order to perfectly match the school curriculum, a specific questionnaire is drawn up for each level.

For each level, the students have 45 minutes to complete the test.

The Assessment

The assessment is carried out centrally by The Big Challenge.

The questionnaires have 3 levels of difficulty: easy, intermediate and difficult questions. The most difficult questions earn the most points. For each wrong answer, a quarter of the points awarded are deducted.

After the contest the school receives a list of its students results and each student receives a certificate showing the number of point obtained and their ranking (school, region, country).

Conditions for Participating

The Big Challenge contest is open to all students from primary to secondary school. Registration is made by the school’s coordinating teacher.

The Big Challenge is financed solely by the students’ participation fees. These fees cover the organisation of the event, the development of training app and the events that take place during the year, such as the CLASS Challenge. The registration fees need to be transferred by the coordinating teacher or another school instance, not by individual parents.

The Organisation

Organising The Big Challenge is really simple: all you have to do is register the number of students you want to participate for each level via this form. No names are necessary.

For the online format, we will send you the contest access details before the event. For the flexible format, you will receive the necessary information for downloading the contest material in advance.

We then draw up the scores and rankings and send the prizes to the schools. All that’s left is for you to celebrate your students’ success together!

Resources

Find all the information you need to organise the contest in your school. Share it with your students, their parents and your colleagues.

Check out the resources >

To find out everything about how the contest is organized at your school, visit our help center.