WWG Young Writers Competition 2025

Prizes will be awarded in the following categories:

Story	Year 6-7	Year 8-10	Sixth Form or equivalent
Poem	Year 6-7	Year 8-10	Sixth Form or equivalent

🥇 First prize (Story and Poem) in the Year 6-7 age group will be a set of 4 Legoland tickets. First prize in other age groups will be a £75 book token.

🥈 Second prizes will be £30 in book tokens.

The judges reserve the right to award other prizes in addition to the above. No cash alternatives will be offered.

All winners and shortlisted entrants will be presented with a certificate at the Award Ceremony.

Competition Dates

Entrants must submit their work by midnight 31st July 2025.

The shortlist will be published on our website on 2^nd September, notified by e-mail and invited to the Award Ceremony at the Old Court, Windsor, on Saturday 11^th October. Shortlisted entrants will receive three free tickets to the event.

How to Submit

It’s FREE to enter – just check out the rules and layout requirements below and send your submission as a PDF file to windsor.writers@gmail.com

Layout Requirements

1) In your submission e-mail the subject line must read:

[Story or Poem] – [Title] – [Entrant’s Name or First Name / Class] – Entrant’s School Year

e.g. Story – The Watcher – Sam Smith – Y6    

If you prefer not to give us your surname at this stage, please give your class name instead.

e.g. Story – The Watcher – Sam [Class name] – Y6    

2) The following information must be at the top of the pdf of your story or poem. It does not count towards the word or line limit but points will be deducted if this isn’t done:

• Name
• School Year
• Where you live, work or go to school/college in RBWM
• Contact email (for notification of results). If under 16, include your parent / guardian email address and their written approval e.g. ‘My child has my approval for submission, [parent/guardian name] [parent/guardian email address]’
• Story or Poem Title
• Word count (for story) or number of lines (for poem)

Competition Rules

1) You must be an individual (any group entry will be counted as an individual entry for prize giving purposes) and:

a. be in Year 6 or above, up to the age 18, on 31/08/2025

b. live, work or attend an educational establishment in RBWM

2) You must submit your entry by the submission date of midnight 31st July 2025.

3) If you are under 16, you must have parent / guardian permission to enter (see layout requirements above).

a. By giving permission, your parent/guardian consents to the details you supply being shared with the panel of judges and competition administrators.

4) Family members of WWG judges are ineligible to enter the competition.

5) The work you submit must be:

a. Original and your own (we will use an AI checker and reject any submission with a score less than our threshold)

b. In English

c. Submitted according to the Layout Requirements

d. Fictional

e. Unpublished

f. Respectful of racial, religious and gender sensitivities

g. Be submitted by the deadline as a pdf file (but not a scanned or photo pdf file – we need to be able to cut and paste into the AI checker to accept the submission).

6) Each person may only submit one entry per category i.e. story and/or poem.

7) Submissions cannot be altered once submitted.

8) Submissions received after the closing date will not be considered.

9) Shortlisted entries will be notified by the WWG and invited to attend the Award Ceremony on Saturday 11th October 2025.

10) Shortlisted entrants grant WWG the right to list their achievement on the WWG website.

11) Prizes will be awarded only at the Award Ceremony.

12) Feedback on submissions may be requested after the Award Ceremony.

13) Entrants will maintain the copyright for their work and are free to publish their submission or enter it into other competitions after the Award Ceremony.

14) Data provided by entrants will only be used for the running of the competition and will be deleted three months after the Award Ceremony, except for competition results and winning entries / photos published on the WWG website.

15) The judges’ decision will be final and no correspondence will be entered into in respect of the results.

Judging Criteria

Our competition judges will be looking out for the following:

• Pieces that follow the layout requirements and rules (see below)
• Grammar and spelling
• Use of language
• Writing techniques e.g. simile, tension, conflict, humour and description.
• Something special that makes your work stand out.

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