Schools' Challenge

Senior Schools Challenge is for students aged up to 18, with no lower age restriction. In practice the teams tend to draw on Form III to Upper VI (Year 9 to Year 13 in state schools in England & Wales). Each team comprises four members, two of whom must be no older than the normal age for a Form IV (Year 10) student (in 2018–19, born on or after 1 September 2003, or 1 August 2003 in Northern Ireland). The other two can be of any age. Junior Schools Challenge is for students up to and including the normal age for a Form II Year 8) student, or preparatory school pupils: in 2019, born on or after 1 September 2006 (1 August 2006 in Northern Ireland). Again, there are four members in each team but there are no restrictions on the numbers of any students from a particular age group in this competition.

The competition is divided this way because of the incongruence between the independent school system and grammar or comprehensive schools. In some independent school systems students attend a preparatory school until the age of 13, after which time they transfer to another school. Schools Challenge has had to work around this so that no school has an unfair advantage in terms of age.

Both Senior and Junior competitions are divided into a maximum of 15 regions. Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales each comprise a separate region, though Northern Ireland currently does not participate in the Senior competition. Each region has a coordinator, the Regional Organiser, who in turn answers to the National Organisers.

The competition starts with each respective region's tournament. The number of teams that participate in each region varies, with some regions larger/smaller than others (This can lead to imbalance, meaning regions have been re-organised over the years.) Then, the 15 eventual regional winners play an inter-regional round - usually against the winners of a neighbouring region - the winners of which participate in the national finals to contest the Schools' Challenge shield. The runners-up of the School Challenge competition also receive a smaller shield. Teams who lose in the first round of the national final contest (the quarter-finals) enter the repechage contest for the Schools' Challenge Plate. Finals are contested in a single day, normally the last Sunday in April for the Senior competition and the third or fourth Sunday in June for the Junior competition, at a central venue.

The national competition is organised by Paul and Sue Sims, assisted by regional coordinators.

The game is played to similar rules to the TV show University Challenge. Starter questions are asked to all contestants and the first to buzz must answer immediately (or the full question is passed to the other team). The team that correctly answers a buzzer question is then asked three 'bonus' questions which they may confer on and which may be passed to the other team. The main differences between Schools Challenge and University Challenge are:

• No points are deducted for incorrectly interrupting a starter question on the buzzer.
• Bonus questions are worth 10 points each and are passed across to the other team if answered incorrectly.
• A team answering the starter and all three subsequent bonuses correctly gains an extra bonus of 10 points: thus 50 points are available per round.
• There are no picture rounds or music rounds at present.
• The contestant who buzzes first must wait for the quiz master's signal that they should give their answer. Failure to comply with these regulations may leave the contestant's answer void.

8-player lockout buzzers, common in quizzes of this type are used and are supplied by tournament organisers if a hosting school cannot supply the equipment. While tournament rules do not specify a manufacturer, the Jaser Quizmaster system is the de facto standard in many regions, although this is no longer being manufactured.

An electronic scoreboard, which can be projected onto an IWB (interactive whiteboard) or screen has been used in a number of Regional Finals and National Finals in recent years.

The most successful team in the competition's history are Westminster School, who won each year from 2005–2009, in 2016, 2018 and 2020. In addition, they were beaten finalists in 2004 and 2011, semi-finalists in 2010, and won the Plate competition in 2015. The only team to have won the Senior and Junior competitions in the same season (2014 and 2019) is The Perse School, Cambridge. Other consistently successful teams in both Junior and Senior competitions are The Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, Hereford Cathedral School, King Edward's School, Birmingham, Lancaster Royal Grammar School, Nottingham High School and Calday Grange Grammar School; and in the Junior competition only, Dulwich Prep London (previously known as Dulwich College Preparatory School). However, the quality of schools can be changeable (perhaps as older members leave) and it is not uncommon to see a school do well in the competition maybe even for the first time in many years.

So far, the only all-female teams ever to qualify for the Senior National Finals (four times in all) have been from Bournemouth School for Girls. BSG’s 2019 team is to date the most successful all girls' team in the Senior competition’s history, having beaten King Edward VI Grammar School, Chelmsford (in the latter's first foray past the regional rounds in thirteen years) to win the Plate Final. All-female teams have been rather more successful in the Junior competition: King Edward VI High School for Girls, Birmingham (1987 and 2005), Withington Girls' School (1991), Chelmsford County High School for Girls (1993) Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School (2003), Haberdashers' Monmouth School for Girls (2004), Sacred Heart Grammar School, Newry (2006 and 2016) and Wakefield Girls' High School (2013). King Edward VI High School for Girls has been the only all-female team to have won the Junior National Finals (in 1987); Chelmsford County High School for Girls were runners-up in 1993.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic causing the closure of secondary schools in early 2020, the decision was made to conduct the remaining stages (the nationals and the inter-regionals) of the competition predominantly via the video app Zoom. However, the inter-regional rounds that were not completed before the closure of schools were conducted in an all-new 'pub-quiz' style, rather than on buzzers as is usual or on Zoom as the national rounds were played.

The seven (Exeter School was also to play, but dropped out and was replaced by KES B) teams in the national finals were The Perse School, Calday Grange, Dollar Academy, Westminster School, King Edward VI Grammar School Chelmsford, and Warwick School, who would have hosted the competition. Due to one team dropping out, King Edward's School got a 'bye' to the semi-finals (they played their own B team, technically).

In the 2019-20 Junior Competition, The Perse School retained their title from the previous year, defeating the Dragon School, Oxford in the final. The junior plate competition was won by King's School, Rochester.[2]