St Mary’s School, Cambridge hosted its third annual Creative Writing Competition this year, which invites boys and girls from Cambridgeshire to submit a piece of creative writing. The competition is for children in two categories, either Year 5 and 6, or Year 7 and 8. The themes for this year’s entrants to choose from were: Battle; Contest; Courage; Hope; and Pain. Having been given the summer holiday to begin their entries, participants were able to put significant time and effort in to creating these stories, using their imaginations, and drawing on their own experiences of life.
The school was delighted with the uptake of the competition this year, receiving almost 250 entries; the popularity of the competition having more than doubled since its inception only two years ago.
Competition winners were announced at last week’s presentation evening at St Mary’s School, Cambridge, by the school’s own resident author and English teacher, Louisa Reid, who could not have been more inspirational to the young writers, talking about the joy of writing, giving excellent advice on how to write a successful piece of creative writing drawing on her experiences as a published author of two highly successful teenage fiction books. Linda Fairbrother, High Sheriff of Cambridge, presented prizes to the winners of each category, as well as to those who were highly commended.
The school received entries from its own students, as well as a number of Cambridgeshire schools including: St John’s College School, Rickling C of E, Foxton, and St Philip’s C of E. All participating students received a certificate of participation as well as a small token in recognition of their efforts in the competition.
The winner from the Year 5 and 6 category was Tallula D., a Year 6 student from St John’s College School, Cambridge. For the Year 7 and 8 category, there were two joint winners, both from St John’s College School, Cambridge – Rupert G., Year 8, and Tuka G., Year 7. Each won a £50 book token, as well as the opportunity to read extracts from their story at Ely Cathedral on Saturday, 21 March 2015.
Charlotte Avery, Headmistress at St Mary’s School, Cambridge added: “We are delighted that we received so many entries to our Creative Writing Competition this year and the quality of writing was superb. Sir Ken Robinson recently lamented that schools are inadvertently crushing creativity with a narrow curriculum which favours a ‘particular type of intelligence’. The importance of creativity in education has never been more apparent and we are ensuring that we are encouraging it at every level – our Creative Writing Competition for Years 5 to 8, the introduction of the Creative Writing AS Level which girls are invited to take in their GCSE year and our new Creative Writing Scholarship. We look forward to receiving even more entries to our competition next year!”