Thanks to support from players of People's Postcode Lottery, our Wild Forest School Team recently launched our first ever short story writing competition. Primary school students in Leicester were challenged to turn their love of nature into a captivating story and entries could win their school a fantastic wildlife-themed prize!
The competition was open to all Key Stage 2 (Years 3 to 6) pupils in the city, stories had to feature UK plants, trees and/or animals and be a maximum length of 500 words. 7 schools entered 26 stories, which were judged by BBC Radio Leicester presenter Jimmy Carpenter, Leicester Mercury News Editor Linda Steelyard, Environmental Education Co-ordinator for Leicester City Council Lee Jowett and Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust’s Grow Wild gardener Matthew Herbert.
After reading through a wide range of entries, the panel of expert judges then picked their top three.
The winners were:
Phoebe Wade found out that she had won live on BBC Radio Leicester when her story was read out on air during the afternoon show on Monday July 1st.
The three winners will now receive prizes for their schools. First prize is a custom-built storytelling chair and storytelling area, second is a bespoke wildlife-themed story trail and third is 12 wildlife-themed fiction and non-fiction books for the entrant’s school library.
Simon Bentley, director of Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust, said:
“We know that Leicester children are both incredibly creative and passionate about wildlife, but we were amazed by the quality of entries into our new story writing competition. We saw all sorts of tales featuring a wide range of plants and animals which shows that youngsters in the city have great knowledge of nature.
“We’re thrilled that we’ll now be able to hand out these fantastic prizes to the winners’ schools. We’d like to thank all those who took part, as well as players of People’s Postcode Lottery for their support of our Wild Forest School.”
Read the three winning stories here.
