On Tuesday 10th July, The National Careers Challenge in partnership with NatWest Thrive held its 12th Grand Finals at Doncaster Racecourse. 

There may have been torrential downpours throughout the day, but this did not dampen the spirits of our competing students and we were thrilled to welcome over a thousand students, teachers and business guests to our biggest finals event since 2020!

We can always rely on our competing schools to raise the bar each year and as always, we were blown away by the dedication demonstrated by all of the competing students.  From students in fancy dress, impressive prototypes and mascots, the entrance to Doncaster Racecourse was awash with so much excitement and creativity … true testament to the hard work that goes into the schools preparing for the annual finals. 

In addition to teams from schools all over the UK, we welcomed 30 students from SKT Education & Beyond in China who were also competing after completing the NatWest Thrive “Start Local, Think Global” challenge.

The morning was filled with students pitching to our morning judges in the Executive Boxes overlooking the racecourse, who went on to shortlist the top 2 pitches for each challenge.  It was a tough task this year as the standard was excellent and each team had gone to so much effort with their pitches to make them stand out from the crowd!

We were delighted to welcome representatives from our challenge sponsors, NatWest and Air Products, who have sponsored our Year 7 and 9 challenges and JCB and Atkins Réalis as sponsors for our Year 8 and 10 challenges respectively who made up our afternoon judging panel.  Investor and founder of Helpbnk Simon Squibb and internationally renowned entrepreneur Dom McGregor were announced as our 2024 ambassadors and also joined our afternoon panel.  

A firm TILG favourite and supporter, TikTok magician Ben Hanlin acted as our host wowing our audience with his incredible magic tricks and even performed a card trick with a budding young magician from our audience.  Mike Woodhams, semi finalist from Britain’s Got Talent entertained our audience whilst our afternoon judging panel made their decisions.

A huge congratulations to the following schools who will join our TNCC Hall of Fame:

Year 7 – “Team Walton Wasps” from Walton Priory Middle School 

Year 8 –  “Team Water Walkers” from Christ Church Academy

Year 9 –  “Team Classy Climate” from Acklam Grange School 

Year 10 –  “Team Centurion Academy” from West Kirby Grammar School

International Champions – “Team Wagging Wanderers” from SKT Education & Beyond

Interested in learning more about The National Careers Challenge? Do your students have what it takes to be crowned our 2025 champions? Contact our team on 01785 875375 to find out more!