• Taskmaster Education, a new venture from Avalon, the company behind Channel 4’s hit TV show Taskmaster, is partnering with Place2Be for Children’s Mental Health Week 2023 (6-12 February) to give children in schools and homes across the UK the chance to take part in an exciting and challenging treasure hunt over the course of the week.
• Taskmaster hosts Greg Davies and Alex Horne have recorded a video to announce the partnership, encouraging schools and families to sign up and take part.
• Children’s Mental Health Week, organised by mental health charity Place2Be, is an annual moment to shine a spotlight on the importance of children and young people’s mental health. Each year, thousands of schools and families across the country take part in the week.

3 November 2022: Today Taskmaster Education and Place2Be have announced that they are partnering for Children’s Mental Health Week 2023, in a bid to get children across the country puzzle and problem solving.

The partnership between Place2Be and Taskmaster Education is an exciting opportunity to play Taskmaster across the country with thousands of children at the same time.

Taskmaster, the television series hosted by Greg Davies and starring (and created by) Alex Horne, sees celebrities pitted against each other to complete tasks. Taskmaster Education takes elements of the show and uses them to inspire, engage and teach children and young people. Tasks can be adapted to meet any desired aims that the teacher might have, whether they be curriculum-based or more to aid the child’s social and emotional development.

During Children’s Mental Health Week 2023, Alex Horne will set daily tasks for children to join in with at school or at home. There will also be a treasure hunt, with daily clues to solve: if these are solved correctly over the course of the week, schools, families or other groups will make it on to the Wall of Fame and have a chance of winning the Taskmaster Treasure Hunt Grand Prize.

By engaging with Taskmaster’s approach to learning, children develop important life skills such as teamwork, problem solving, communication, lateral thinking and resilience, while pupil wellbeing is supported and developed by making school more fun. Working as a team improves a child’s sense of belonging, and the varied nature of tasks means that it’s not always the same (sporty or academic) children who do well. Everyone has the chance to play their part, feel involved, and succeed.Children’s Mental Health Week was launched by Place2Be in 2015 to shine a spotlight on the importance of children and young people’s mental health. In 2022, Place2Be’s free resources for schools and families were downloaded over 129,000 times. Now in its ninth year, Place2Be hopes to encourage more people than ever to get involved, spread the word, and raise vital funds for children’s mental health.

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For further information, or to arrange interviews, please contact:

Abi Aldridge, Head of Communications, Place2Be

abi.aldridge@place2be.org.uk

Florrie Sheehan, Publicity Manager

fsheehan@avalonuk.com

Notes to Editors

About Place2Be

Place2Be is a children’s mental health charity providing school-based support and in-depth training programmes to improve the emotional wellbeing of pupils, families, teachers and school staff.

The charity currently provides an embedded mental health service in over 400 UK primary and secondary schools, supporting a school community of around 225,000 children and young people.

Last year, over 54,000 teachers and other professionals accessed the Place2Be Mental Health Champions – Foundation programme, and the charity’s resources to support schools and families were downloaded or viewed over 124,000 times.

HRH The Princess of Wales became Patron of Place2Be in 2013, reflecting her personal interest in and commitment to improving the mental health and emotional wellbeing of children.

place2be.org.uk / Twitter @Place2Be / Facebook @place2becharity / Instagram @_place2be

About Children’s Mental Health Week

Place2Be launched the first ever Children’s Mental Health Week in 2015 to shine a spotlight on the importance of children and young people’s mental health.

Now in its ninth year, we hope to encourage more people than ever to get involved, spread the word, and raise vital funds for children’s mental health.

Every year, Place2Be’s expert team develop resources to help people to take part in the week. From activity ideas and assembly guides to top tips and videos, our free resources will help you explore mental health and wellbeing with the children and young people around you.

childrensmentalhealthweek.org.uk / #ChildrensMentalHealthWeek

About Taskmaster Education

Taskmaster is Channel 4’s BAFTA-winning smash hit comedy entertainment show where the almighty Taskmaster (Greg Davies), with the help of his loyal assistant (Alex Horne, also the show’s creator), sets out to test the wiles, wit and wisdom of five hyper-competitive comedians through a series of ludicrous tasks.

Taskmaster Education takes elements of the show and uses them to inspire, engage and teach children and young people. Tasks can be adapted to meet a near infinite range of teacher objectives, whether curriculum-based or more focused on social and emotional development.

By engaging with Taskmaster’s approach to learning, children develop important life skills such as teamwork, problem solving, communication, lateral thinking and resilience, while pupil wellbeing is supported and developed by making school more fun. Working as a team improves a child’s sense of belonging, and the varied nature of tasks means that it’s not always the same (sporty or academic) children who do well. Everyone has the chance to play their part, feel involved, and succeed.

TaskmasterEducation.com / Twitter @TaskmasterEdu / #TaskmasterEducation

About Taskmaster

• Taskmaster is a BAFTA winning and International Emmy nominated comedy entertainment show originally created by Alex Horne. Greg Davies stars as the all-powerful “Taskmaster” who, with the help of his loyal assistant Horne, sets out to test the wiles, wit and wisdom of five comedians through a series of strange and surreal challenges in what is the most hard-fought and ridiculous comedy entertainment format on TV.

• 149 episodes have been produced in the UK so far, as part of a landmark six season deal with Channel 4 in 2020. Series 10 – 15 air on Channel 4 from Autumn 2020, following nine record-breaking series on UKTV’s Dave.

• The show enjoyed its best performance on record with its Channel 4 launch which reached 3.9 million consolidated views after the first episode, winning the majority share of young viewers 16 – 34’s and making it the best-performing new entertainment show of this year (Broadcast, 2020). Since the programme’s initial launch in 2015 on UKTV’s Dave, Taskmaster’s audience has grown by 80% from series one to series nine.

• Taskmaster was crowned Best Comedy Entertainment Show at the National Comedy Awards 2021, Best Comedy Entertainment at the BAFTAs 2020 and won Best Entertainment Programme at the Broadcast Awards 2018, having previously received two more nominations for both awards. It has also been nominated for the Bruce Forsyth Entertainment Award at the NTA’s 2021 and 2022, Studio Entertainment at Rose d’Or 2021, Best Entertainment Programme at the RTS Awards, Broadcasting Press Guild Awards, the Broadcast Digital Awards, Edinburgh TV Award, the TV Choice Awards, and Best Returning Format in the International Format Awards 2020.

• The original Taskmaster programme has been sold to 94 countries and aired on The CW in the U.S. in 2020.

• Over 300 episodes have been produced outside the UK with local versions now on air across the Nordics, in New Zealand, Croatia and Portugal where it ranked third for most watched entertainment programs on its channel RTP. While in Australia Paramount have picked up the rights to make their own local version.

• The format has seen huge success in Europe, with the Swedish version winning Programme of the Year at the Kristallen in 2020 and 2019 (Sweden’s TV Academy Awards) and its fifth series for SVT reaching ratings of over a 50% market share in a primetime weekend slot. Norway’s original version of Taskmaster, ‘Kongen Befaler’’s won Best Entertainment Show at the prestigious Golden Screen Awards 2020 and won the Norwegian TV Academy Award (Gullruten) for Best Entertainment in 2020, where a fourth has been commissioned by Discovery. Two new series have been ordered for MTV in Finland after its first episode ranked in the top ten most watched shows in the country, and a fifth series for TV2 in Denmark.

• The Taskmaster YouTube channel has seen huge success internationally, reaching just over 6.1 billion impressions since it first launched in October 2019, with just under half of the channel’s views and over a third of its subscribers originating from the U.S. The channel has had over 90 million hours worth of content viewed with 41% of those hours from the US (37 million hours watched). The show has grown significantly in popularity with U.S. audiences and over the last year there have been total of 54 million views in the last 12 months reaching a million subscribers, while the channel audience has increased by 438% in the USA.

• #HomeTasking had over 100 million impressions across all content on YouTube. Viewing grew by 42%, while subscribers grew by 85% since it launched on the Taskmaster YouTube channel. It was watched in 125 countries with viewers ranging from the US to the UK and from Moldova to Mongolia.

• Taskmaster is working with Homeless Link; the national membership charity for frontline homelessness services, creating a virtual Taskmaster at Home event with all the money raised going to homeless charities across the UK. Having raised over £115,000, more information on the virtual event can be found here.