1. Any academy trust in the UK can enter the 2024 MAT Excellence Awards. Trusts can enter a single submission in as many categories as they like (i.e.  there can only be one entry from a trust in a category). 
2. Nominations can be submitted anytime from September 2023 until 11.59 GMT on 4 December 2023. Registrations received outside this time period will not be considered. Optimus Education reserves the right to extend the closing date for entry registrations for whatever reason.
3. Nominations must be submitted in the format outlined in the nominations pack and the submission guidelines. Neither Optimus Education nor any judging panel member will take responsibility for broken or inaccurate links to videos, links to videos that have been blocked by security settings or restrictions placed by internet service providers, nor expired passwords or login information.
4. Optimus Education accepts no responsibility for entry registrations that are lost, delayed, misdirected or incomplete or cannot be delivered or entered for any technical or other reason.
5. All submissions will be acknowledged by email as soon as possible.
6. Neither Optimus Education nor any judging panel member takes any liability for any inaccurate information contained within any submission, as it is the entrant's responsibility to provide accurate information. As organisers, Optimus Education reserves the right to verify any information contained in the submission.
7. Submissions in their entirety are not shared in the public domain. 
8. Submissions must include a summary statement of no more than 60 words. This summary, or an edited version thereof, will be published on the MAT Excellence Awards website if the entry is shortlisted, and will therefore enter the public domain. It may also be used in other marketing or communications connected with the MAT Excellence Awards. The summary will be published without prior consultation, and it is the responsibility of the nominating trust to ensure that the summary does not include any confidential or other information that they do not wish to see in the public domain. 
9. Our panel of judges will carefully review each submission against the provided judging criteria. Judges typically review between one and three categories; we will avoid any potential conflict of interest.
10. Judges will be asked to give a score for each question within the entry form. These will be combined to provide an overall score for each entry. The highest-scoring entries will determine the shortlists.
11. Judges will meet to discuss the highest-scoring entries and then agree on the winner for each category.
12. All decisions made by the judging panel and by Optimus Education relating to shortlisting, presentations and granting of awards in the course of judging the MAT Excellence Awards are final. Neither Optimus Education nor any judging panel member will enter correspondence or discussion with any entrants regarding such decisions.  
13. Optimus Education reserves the right to:
    1. disqualify submissions which do not comply with these conditions
    2. not make an award in any given category
    3. divide, merge or rename any category as deemed appropriate. 
14. Judges and organisers are bound by a clear agreement which prevents them from revealing the winners' identity until after the award winners' announcement, which takes place during the gala evening in June.
15. Optimus Education reserves the right, in any circumstances, to cancel the MAT Excellence Awards at any time and shall not have any liability of whatsoever nature to entrants in such circumstances or otherwise.
16. We may change these conditions anytime by posting changes on the website.

View Optimus Education's full Terms and Conditions