Challenges & Clubs
Purpose to create for, and people to create with
Challenges give a young person a reason to make something and a real audience of adults reviewing it. Clubs give them a small, consistent group to make things alongside — every space with named adult supervision and firm boundaries.
“Tell a one-minute story about your street”
Film or audio · illustrative
Challenges
Set by verified schools, groups and organisations
Every challenge on Aurelia is published by a verified account with a real institutional identity — a school, an education group, or an approved organisation. There is no route for an anonymous or unverified party to set a challenge for children.
Verified publishers only
Challenge briefs can only be published by accounts that have already been through Aurelia's verification process for schools, groups or organisations.
Clear, bounded briefs
A challenge states what is being asked for, who can enter, the deadline, and how entries will be reviewed — before a single child sees it.
Recognition, not ranking
A strong entry can lead to a verified achievement in the passport. Aurelia does not publish public leaderboards of entrants.
Example prompts
The kind of brief a challenge might set
Illustrative examples only — not live challenges, and not written for a real organisation.
Film or audio · illustrative
"Tell a one-minute story about your street"
Art & design · illustrative
"Design a poster for a cause you care about"
Invention · illustrative
"Invent something that fixes one small annoyance"
Game · illustrative
"Build a game with exactly one rule"
Submission and review
From brief to reviewed entry
A challenge submission follows the same safety rules as any other piece of shared work in Aurelia — nothing skips guardian approval, even under a deadline.
- 01
A brief is set
A verified school, education group or organisation publishes a challenge with a clear brief and deadline.
- 02
Children respond
Interested children work on a response in the Creator Studio, using drafting and feedback as normal.
- 03
Guardian approves the entry
As with any shared work, a guardian must approve the submission before it is entered.
- 04
Named reviewers assess it
Entries are reviewed by identified adults connected to the challenge, not by public voting.
Clubs
A small, supervised group with a shared interest
Clubs bring together a bounded group of children around a shared interest — a podcasting club, a nature-writing club, an invention club — always under the direct supervision of a named, accountable adult.
Named adult supervision
Every club has a specific, identified adult responsible for it — a teacher, group leader or approved supervisor — not an anonymous moderator.
Bounded membership
Clubs are limited to members who have been added by a school, group or guardian. There is no open, self-service joining of clubs by children.
Making together, without the features that turn it competitive
A club or challenge is a place to build something alongside other people — not a feed to perform on. Aurelia deliberately leaves out the mechanics that make many online groups unsafe or anxiety-inducing for children.
- Named adult supervision for every club — a teacher, group leader or approved supervisor.
- Bounded membership: children are added by a school, group or guardian, never self-service.
- No open messaging between members — feedback is structured and tied to the work.
- No public follower counts, friend lists or popularity metrics inside a club.
Boundaries
What challenges and clubs deliberately do not include
The features that make many online communities unsafe for children are simply not present in Aurelia's design.
No child direct messages
There is no private messaging between children, and no route for an adult outside a child's verified circle to open a conversation with them. Communication about a project happens through structured feedback tied to the work.
No follower or popularity counts
No followers, no likes, no vote tallies and no public ranking of entrants. A challenge result is a judged outcome, not a competition for attention.
No open child directory
Children are not browsable, searchable or listed anywhere — not by other children, not by clubs, and not by the organisations sponsoring a challenge.
No contact details shared
Email addresses, phone numbers, handles and locations are never exposed through a club or a challenge entry, in either direction.
No feed and no endless scroll
Clubs and challenges are bounded spaces with a purpose and a deadline, not an infinite stream ranked to keep a young person scrolling.
No unsupervised space
Every club and every challenge review sits with a named, accountable adult. There is no corner of this area without adult responsibility attached to it.
Judging
A judge sees the work. Not the child.
When an entry reaches a challenge reviewer, it arrives stripped of anything that identifies the young person behind it. Judging is an assessment of a piece of work against a brief — it is never an introduction.
What a judge sees
- The submitted piece of work itself, as approved for entry.
- The project label — the format and the brief it was answering.
- The age band the entry was submitted under, so it can be judged fairly against its peers.
- The child's chosen display name for the entry, or an anonymous entry reference.
- Any notes the child chose to include about how they made it.
What a judge never sees
- A real name, email address, phone number or home address.
- A school name, class or town that could locate the child.
- Any route to message, follow or contact the child who entered.
- Private drafts, earlier versions or anything else in the child's studio.
- A browsable list of the other children who entered.
The organisation boundary
An organisation can sponsor a challenge. It never meets the child who answers it.
Verified organisations can sponsor approved challenge and content workflows — funding a prize, setting a brief in their field, offering recognition. That sponsorship runs entirely through institutional workflows and grants no other access to children.
What a sponsoring organisation can do
Propose an approved brief, supply approved supporting content, provide named reviewers for judging, and offer recognition that a verified teacher can turn into a Passport achievement.
What sponsorship never unlocks
No direct contact with a child, no browsing or searching children, no contact details, no bypassing a family's control over their child's work. Every entry remains the guardian's decision to share.
Bring a challenge or club to Aurelia
Schools, education groups and approved organisations can set challenges. Families and schools can start a supervised club.