Frequently Asked Questions

1: My school is outside Oxfordshire, but I would like to take part?

Unfortunately we don't have the resources to accept entries from outside the county of Oxfordshire. But if you would have wanted to take part, please let us know using the feedback form. We'll use your feedback to help the BCS gauge whether to do something similar for other parts of the country in future years.

2: We would like to enter a Sixth Form team: is this possible?

Historically, the Secondary age range has been 11-16, which strictly speaking excludes older Sixth Form students. However, by popular request, we have expanded the competition to include Sixth Formers. Younger Secondary students should not be worried by this as the age profile of the teams will be taken into account during the marking.

3: I think I can build a website all by myself. Can I enter as a team of one?

We don't exclude teams of one, but the competition is designed to encourage teamwork. Some of the marks are awarded for a description of how you built your site and how you divided the roles amongst members of your team. (See marking scheme).

4: Can I use tools/plugins, such as Macromedia Flash, to enhance my site?

We originally included the caveats about plugins for several reasons:

  1. to have a reasonably level playing field so that schools who perhaps couldn't afford all the latest software bells and whistles would still be able to demonstrate creativity and good design and stand a chance of winning prizes
  2. we wanted competitors to think about aspects of accessibility, and how their site could be used - possibly in degraded mode - over slow lines and by people with disabilities.

We tried to word the rules carefully so that use of Flash and similar techniques to enhance sites was not ruled out and indeed Flash can be used to good effect. If you look at the marking scheme, you could score very highly in some areas with a site using Flash, but if there was no alternative non- graphical navigation scheme it would be difficult to get full marks in the Audience Awareness section.

5: Would not following a "local theme" hinder our chances of winning?

We wanted to give some guidance about site content rather than leave teams come up with random ideas, and, for example, many of the geography key stages have a local theme, hence it fits in well with the ciriculum.

But if you read to the bottom of page on the marking scheme you can see that it's perfectly OK to submit a site with a different theme - but it should still be related to your coursework. The key is that 10% of the marks are on your description which is the place you could use to explain to the judges why the theme you chose was appropriate, especially if you had a valid reason for not using a local theme.