The 5th grade H-AI Five of GVBS Sint-Donatus wins The Scale of M and can call itself Flanders' most media-savvy class for a year. Just as in previous years, DNS Belgium is a proud partner of The Scale of M.
The Scale of M (De Schaal van M) is a competition on online safety and awareness. Children from the fifth and sixth grades of primary school can compete for the title of Flanders' most media-savvy class.
To win this title, participating classes had to carry out a number of assignments every day in the week of February 17th. For example, students had to chat with a chatbot, find a fun meme about their favourite series, take quizzes, etc. Topics included cyberbullying, artificial intelligence and online privacy. For each day, they earned a star for the class. If they completed all the assignments for a whole week, they became a media-savvy five-star class.
With DNS Belgium's support
The five-star classes that participated in the competition challenge were able to win one of twenty media-savvy prizes, such as a class visit to VRT, media-savvy workshops, etc. Additionally, DNS Belgium awarded the winning class with 25 refurbished laptops from Digital for Youth.
For years, Digital for Youth has been collecting decommissioned laptops from companies and donating them to organisations dedicated to teaching youngsters digital skills.
DNS Belgium finds it important to support The Scale of M. The initiative is crucial in raising children's awareness about online safety. Not only did we provide the refurbished laptops through Digital for Youth, DNS Belgium also sat on the jury, using its expertise to evaluate the entries. On 12 March, Sophie, our sustainability coordinator, Ketnet-wrapper Lee and the team from Mediawijs awarded the prize to the winner.
Record edition with home variant
Whether it was because of the fun challenges, media attention, or top prizes, we don't know, but the 2025 Scale of M edition beat all the records. 2,327 classes signed up for the competition, or more than 47,000 participating students!
The home variant was new this year. Using their LeerID, students were able to log into a separate The Scale of M home environment. Unlike the class assignments, the emphasis at home was more on fun and discovery but the aim to raise children's awareness of online safety remains the same. More than 33,000 students logged into the home environment using their LeerID which was an unexpected success.
And the winner is…
From the thousands of great entries, the jury ultimately chose the 5th grade H-AI Five of GVBS Sint-Donatus in Merchtem as the winner of The Scale of M 2025. They can rightly call themselves Flanders' most media savvy class.
The students created a video report on the advantages and disadvantages of AI. In their assessment, the jury mainly considered the media literacy content of the entry, which the 5th grade H-AI Five of GVBS had incorporated excellently into their project. The students presented their work for the challenge in a visually appealing manner and impressed the jury with the creativity with which they approached the challenge. Additionally, the jury also took into account how well the class reached their target audience, the quality of the submission, and the application of key media literacy principles such as copyright, portrait rights, privacy...
Teacher Tessa responded enthusiastically: "This is the first year we’ve taken part in The Scale of M. The whole class has worked hard on the media-savvy market about AI. What a lovely surprise that we’ve won the main prize straight away!"
We look back with pride on this successful edition of The Scale of M. A big thank you to all the participating parties who contributed to this wonderful success story. We look forward to the next edition and are already curious about the inspiring entries for 2026.
The scale of M is an initiative of Mediawijs, Ketnet, IMEC, Digisprong Kenniscentrum, JEF en Link in de Kabel.
With this article, we support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.