Get Involved | National Challenge (Term 3 2026)
National Challenge. Open to all schools across Australia.
The illuminate National Challenge runs Term 3 2026 – as an intensive week or across the full term using illuminateX resources. Every participating school competes in a live national final day.
Presented by illuminate Education Australia as part of our social impact.
About the program
The illuminate Challenge for small groups delivered nationally, in your school or across the term.
The National Challenge brings the illuminate Challenge framework to schools across Australia in Term 3 2026 – with the flexibility to deliver it as an intensive week-long incursion or spread across the full term using illuminate’s illuminateX resources. Schools choose the format that works for their calendar, their students and their community.
The National Challenge is part of illuminate’s social enterprise commitment to ensuring every young Australian – wherever they live and whatever school they attend – has access to the kind of learning that builds real capability and real confidence. Participating schools join a national cohort working on the same challenge brief, building the same capabilities and competing in the same final event.
Everyone brings everything together for the final day, where teams present against each other live and complete some final tasks together. To allow flexibility, we have proposed two finals day, timed to suit each side of the country – with the Western Australia date to still be confirmed as we are looking to host it on site at Murdoch University;
- Friday September 11, from 10:30 am to 2:30 pm (AEST) | 10:00 to 2:00 pm (ACST) | 08:30 am to 12:30 pm (AWST)
- Friday in September, from 12 noon to 04:00 pm (AEST)| 11:30 am to 03:30 pm (ACST) | 10:00 am to 2:00 pm (AWST)
You can choose the day that suits you and your students best – and have this as an exciting conclusion to an incredible experience.
Important Details
When: Term 3, 2026, with resources posted mid-June 2026.
Format: Two options. Either deliver intensively in one week, supported by our facilitators remotely, or across the full term amongst the normal classroom schedule.
Year levels: Years 7–12
Final Presentation Day: Two dates, scheduled to suit Eastern & Central Australia, and the second scheduled to suit Western Australia hosted in person at Murdoch University.
Open to: All schools, students and young people across Australia. This program is perfect for home school communities, remote high schools to access this, community groups looking to upskill their young people, and for schools looking to offer an engaging and authentic extension activity – but everyone can participate!
Cost: Based on time of registration, but early bird registration (until the end of May, 2026) is $40 per team (of 5 – 7 students) which covers the cost of materials and postage.
Flexibility to suit you and your young people
Get our program to fit your schedule and young people rather than the other way around.
To help as many young people involved as possible, we’ve broken down the structure of the illuminate Challenge for our national program. Throughout each option, teams will be supported through our digital collaboration platform, have access to all resources and content, and be able to schedule mentoring calls across the challenge experience – with the specific timing designed to fit as follows;
Option A: Intensive Delivery
This style of delivery matches closely to our facilitated program, where teams complete all of the activities and tasks in an intensive format. Completed over about 20 hours, this fits well into a four day period with everything prepared to then join the final day that is scheduled in your time zone. While it is ideal to line up the week with the finals day experience available in your local area, so that the teams complete the week with this exciting session, we know the juggle of school calendars, so it can be scheduled at any time before the final day.
Option B: Term Long Delivery
Leveraging the resources that we have developed to deliver an illuminate experience in classrooms across a term, this flexible option allows for greater flexibility to complete everything ahead of the final day of our national challenge. Again using the guide of delivering everything over a 20 hour period, this allows for two hours a week across a term – whether it is done during lesson time, after school in a youth leadership or extension setting, or event at lunchtime. And with everything else we do, our team is to help you out in scheduling this and making it work – so please just ask when you register and we can talk more.
Finals Day Session
At the end of Term 3, every participating school comes together for the National Final Day – a live pitching event where teams present their work to a national panel of judges, and get to hear from others that have participated in the program alongside them, as well as complete some other final activities. Participation and final elements will be confirmed with registered schools, however these will be scheduled for Friday in September 2026, with two options to allow for participation from schools in Eastern and Central Australia, and then a second for Western Australian schools.
Why this program exists
Delivered as part of illuminate’s social enterprise commitment – not a commercial initiative.
The National Challenge is part of illuminate’s commitment as a verified social enterprise to ensuring that access to intensive, evidence-based capability building is not limited by geography, school resources or postcode. A school in regional Queensland and a school in suburban Melbourne participate on the same terms, in the same challenge, competing on the same final day.
illuminate is independently verified by People & Planet First and certified by Social Traders. The majority of any surplus is reinvested towards illuminate’s social purpose – and the National Challenge is one of the direct expressions of that purpose.