Prizegiving

You should have notified distinguished guests and sponsors well in advance of the prizegiving to get the date in their diaries. However, as the date approaches, a formal letter of invitation, in hard copy or by email, or both, is appropriate. You will need to confirm the details, particularly the timing, and give directions to the event. There may be other details, such as information about vehicle registration numbers, which you need to request.

You will need to send directions to all attendees at the prizegiving event, either by email or in hard copy or both. As it is probably an invitation-only event you may choose not to publish the details on an open-access website. Our prizegiving is at a large site, so the directions need to include instructions on how to get from the gatehouse to the gathering point.

We try to spread our budget so that there is a prize for every child of every team which qualifies for an invitation to the prizegiving event. The aim is that the prizes should have some technology connection and not be entirely frivolous. So, for example, digital cameras could be used for making images to put on websites, and USB storage keys used to transfer files. Since the technology develops so fast, this gives us a new challenge each year.

We don't want to buy the prizes too early in case they are obsoleted by the time of the prizegiving. But obviously we don't want to leave it till the very last minute. The spring is a good time to purchase prizes.

The certificates are all personalised using MS Word Mail Merge to pull the variable information from a spreadsheet (see linked files). For privacy reasons we do not have a record of the children's names, so we leave the names on the certificates blank, to be filled in by the teachers. The certificates are printed on high quality certificate paper (bought from Viking). This particular paper was supplied with adhesive-backed gold stars which we affixed by hand and which, we felt, enhanced the effect. The certificates were created and personalised using Microsoft Word Mail Merge taking its input from an Excel spreadsheet. The pages have to be laid out carefully so that the wording fits nicely within the pre-printed pattern on the Certificate stationery. It is a good idea to order more of the certificate paper than you think you need, to allow for problems with the mail merge process.

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All the prizes have to be put in the correct order to be handed out as the children are called down during the prizegiving ceremony. This can involve a considerable effort on the part of committee members. We use the small individually labelled paper bags, as you can see in the linked photo. There will be one bag for each child containing his or her individual prize, and a separate bag for the each team. The team bags contain the team prize (if they won one and if it fits in the bag), a framed certificate for the school, and an individual certificate for each child in the team. For transport, we place the bags in team groups in a box. The labels on the front of each bag are not easily visible when the bags are in the box, so we place a small label with the team name on the handle of each team's bag to allow them to be easily identified.

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The front of the bag for the individual team members. Children's names are not shown (we didn't have a record of the children's names, for privacy reasons)

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The team's prize bag would be kept with the individual bags, but colour coded to make it visually distinguishable. The team bag is meant for the teacher. It would contain the certificates for the children - remember, the names are blank because we do not record them. The teacher would suppervise adding the children's names and handing out the certificates, which can be kept with pupils' Record of Achievement, if they wish to do so. The team bag also contains the Team Certificate. This is similar to the individual certificates, but is framed for display.

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The School prize bag would be provided, if necessary, to hold any prize awarded to the school, or if not an actual prize, a certificate enabling the school to redeem the prize from a sponsor.

If there are cups or shields, they need to be retrieved from the holders. Preferably, the winners of the latest competition will be known early enough to have the engraving done before the prizegiving event. Some of the impact is lost if the cup, having been presented, has to be taken back again immediately for engraving after the presentation.

In previous years, we have had an "inspirational" speaker from one of our sponsors, RM, at the prizegiving event. On two occasions this was John Leighfield. It would not be appropriate to ask all the sponsoring companies for a speaker, so this is a subject we should give careful thought to in future years.

As this event is aimed at children: Keep your talk brief, congratulate the kids on their great entries, say how pleased you are to be able to support/sponsor the competition, wish them all the best in the future.