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• Radio 2's story-writing competition

  Mon 27 Jan 2020

  500 Words 2020

   

  The UK's largest story writing competition for kids is back for its tenth year.

   

  BBC 2 is once again running its short story writing competition this year.

   

  500 Words is the UK’s most successful short story-writing competition for children between the ages of 5 and 13.

  It was launched back in 2011, after Chris Evans had a dream. He dreamt of getting children excited about reading and writing. All children: no matter what their ability, experience, or background.

  2019 attracted over 110, 000 entries children to the short story competition, and since it launched, the competition has received over 912,986 short stories.

   

  It’s super simple. All entrants must pen an original story, no more than 500 words in length, and submit it online. It can be about ANYTHING you want – space-ships, grannies, insects, time travel. The list is endless!

   

  Stories are judged anonymously, without regard to grammar, punctuation or spelling. The competition culminates in a broadcast extravaganza of live music and sensational story-telling every summer, at a special venue. Past venues have included The Globe and The Tower of London and Windsor Castle. 2019 saw a magnificent extravaganza come live from Windsor Castle. From the 112,986 entries - that’s 56.5 million words, with the six winning wordsmiths announced on-air by celebrity narrators including David Walliams and Helen McCrory. There was also fantastic music from Busted, Tom Walker and Matilda the Musical.

   

  500 Words were also delighted to welcome back real-life royalty to the competition: Her Royal Highness, The Duchess of Cornwall, who returned as our Honorary Judge, where she read and debated the top 50 stories of the competition with our amazing author panel: Malorie Blackman, Charlie Higson, Frank Cottrell-Boyce and Francesca Simon.

  In the words of the HRH Duchess of Cornwall “Keep saying a big fat YES to adventure”.

   

  BBC 2 500 Word Story Website

• Doogal and Fergus Fundraiser hits the headlines

  Sat 25 Jan 2020

  Animal Dress up Day
  It was so lovely seeing everyone dressed up as an animal today in support of Doogal and Fergus’ fund raising efforts for the chimpanzee sanctuary in Liberia. I am delighted to say that they raised £29.51 with the raffle and £138.02 bringing the grand total to an amazing £167.53. Well done Doogal and Fergus, we are very proud of you.

   

  Malvern Gazette

  Congratulations to Doogal and Fergus for hitting the headlines of the Malvern Gazette. Their enthusiasm, passion and dedication to the 'Chimp Rescue' has been noticed by the local paper and they have made it into this weeks news. Please take a look and continue to support them with this wonderful charity project.

   

  Malvern Gazette Chimp Rescue News Report

   

  School Website Chimp Rescue Page

   

  Just Giving Page

   

   

• Plastics in the Environment

  Tue 21 Jan 2020
  On Tuesday we had a very interesting talk from Sally Lewin. Sally was a pupil at Hanley Swan over 5 years ago and she visited school today to talk about her role as a WWF Young Ambassador (one of only eight in the UK). One of her projects is to help decrease plastics in the sea, she passionately talked about the issues and how we can combat this increasing problem. A huge thank you to Sally and keep up the good work.