Be@reative powered by ScreenThing, a nationwide schools competition which tasks pupils aged 11 to 19 with a real-life advertising brief to tackle the challenge of copyright infringement, launched last week. £5,000 and iPads are up for grabs for winners' schools.

The national competition, which is the brainchild of film charity 'Film Education' and film, TV and video industry organisation 'The Industry Trust for IP Awareness,' gives young people the opportunity to showcase their creative talent while getting a unique glimpse "of the dedication, hard work and relentless innovation that goes into making film and TV in the UK."

"Tapping into young people's passion for film, TV and video, the competition invites students to create an original advertising campaign aimed at their peers," say the organisers. "Students are set the challenge of bringing to life the value of the UK film, TV and video industry to show fans why they should choose official content over illegal downloads and streams."

"We deliberately created the competition in a way which gives students a hands-on immersive experience," says Liz Bales, Director General of The Industry Trust. "There?s no better way to understand the importance of protecting creative work than by producing your own."

"Feedback from teachers has also been extremely encouraging," adds Emma Bull, Head of Digital Education at Film Education. "By aligning the programme with the academic year and making it complementary to the national curriculum, the aim is to give teachers an opportunity to develop their pupils' key skills ranging from communication, creativity and persuasion to critical thinking and problem solving."

Speaking about their success and the positive effect the competition has had on his students, Dan Simpson, Film & Digital Media Director at last year's winning school, St. Matthew Academy (pictured) said: "Participating in and ultimately winning the Be@reative competition has had a dramatic impact on our students and has had a transformative impact on our school. The competition has been a key catalyst in inspiring our students to pursue media courses and in turn the school has responded by introducing a range of new study options. Prior to last year, we only offered one media course, but from this summer we have GCSE Media studies for year 10's, BTEC Extended Certificate in Creative Media Production for year 11's and a Media option for both year 7's and year 8's."



Click here for information about the competition.

Story filed 06.10.12