The competition was set up to help launch this website, and challenged children to create illustrations for a poster for classrooms. We had so many fantastic entries that we redesigned the poster to work as both a leaflet and a frieze to help remind parents, teachers and children what the five age ratings U, PG, 12A, 15 and 18 mean. We also used some amazing illustrations to help explain to parents how they can find out more about age ratings and our education work.

We have announced the winners of our CBBFC poster competition. You can order a copy here.

We had over 130 individual entries that were considered by our panel of judges, including BBFC President, Patrick Swaffer and Lucinda Hasell, Director of Policy and Communications at Childnet International, an organisation that works to keep children safe online. The winners were those drawings that best show who can go and see what films in the cinema, how old they might be and whether they might go with family or friends.

Lucy Brett, Head of Education at the BBFC said:

“We launched the poster competition to encourage children to start to recognise what film ratings are suitable for what age groups and we were thoroughly impressed by the standard of all the entries. Choosing our winners was really difficult since all the entries were so creative and so many of the drawings showed a really high level of awareness of what age ratings mean and what sort of films are appropriate for children and for older age groups. In fact, we had to redesign the leaflet to incorporate as many of the entries as possible. The new design works as both a booklet for children and parents to read and a frieze or border that teachers can put up on the classroom wall. The passion children have for cinema also shines through and we’ve tried to capture this in our new poster for schools.

The poster will be useful for teachers, people running children’s screenings at cinemas, after school film clubs and similar activities, where children watch films for pleasure. It includes an easy guide to BBFC age ratings and answers some of the key questions parents and teachers ask us.”

Teachers can order a copy of the poster by emailing us from our website pages written for grown-ups.

Here are the names of all the winners and runners up.

Overall Winners

The overall winners had their designs featured on the front pages of the booklet, and the judges choice was a picture illustrating PG films and showing that parents and children can enjoy watching films at the cinema together. They are:

‘Judges’ Choice’ & PG Category
Cameron Goodchild of Claremont School, Westfield, East Sussex

Cover pages
Chloe Brown of Mansel Primary School, Sheffield and Neve Irvine of Castlehill Primary School, Bearsden, East Dunbartonshire.

Other winning entries featured on the poster are:

U Category
Maddy Pickering of Kids' Club Duke of York's cinema, Brighton

12A Category
Joshua Johnston of Campbell College Junior School, Belfast

15 Category
Shaun Fairbrother and Emma Staniland of Mansel Primary School, Sheffield

18 Category
Hugh Minford of Campbell College Junior School, Belfast

Also featured on the poster are drawings illustrating all the categories by: Olivia Noon, Emily Ball and Anais Mike from Abbey Gates Primary School, Ravenshead, near Mansfield; Rianne Gabrielle Chang of St Vincent De Paul Primary School, Belfast; and Courtney Bingham of Mansel Primary School, Sheffield.

Runners Up

The runners-up are:

U Category
Sophie Bell of Maidstone Grammar School for Girls, Maidstone and Ruby Stevens of the Kids' Club Duke of York's cinema, Brighton.

PG Category
Katie Bar of Maidstone Grammar School for Girls, Maidstone and Sean Isidor Cruz of St Vincent De Paul Primary School, Belfast.

12A Category
Ryan Arnold and Jonathan Connery of Campbell College Junior School, Belfast

15 Category
Christopher Parsey of Chenies School, Buckinghamshire

18 Category
Summer Elliot of Mansel Primary School, Sheffield and Shay Darby of Campbell College Junior School, Belfast.

Prizes for the winners include a training session with a BBFC Film Examiner at their school for them and their class and a bag full of BBFC goodies. The new poster will be available free of charge to all Primary schools across the UK and become a key part of the BBFC’s education materials. In 2013 the BBFC visited over 120 schools, colleges, universities and film festivals, and held seminars and video conferences involving over 11,000 students of all ages, parents and members of the public.