BBC Radio 2 unveils 500 WORDS winners at Shakespeare’s Globe

Now in its sixth year, the competition received a record 123,436 entries – over 3,000 more than last year - from children aged between five and 13 from all over the UK. They composed an original work of fiction using no more than 500 words – that's more than 60 million words submitted in total.

As part of the BBC’s celebration of Shakespeare and the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death, the winners were revealed at Shakespeare’s Globe during Chris Evans’ Breakfast Show. Guest narrators Julie Walters, Tom Hiddleston, Warwick Davis, Andy Serkis, Nick Jonas and Raleigh Ritchie read out the Bronze, Silver, and Gold winning entries in the two age categories (five-nine and 10-13 years), and One Republic, All Saints and Foxes performed with the BBC Concert Orchestra and the London Community Gospel Choir during the show. And new for this year, every single child who entered the competition was entered into a ballot for the chance to attend the grand finale.

This year, after hosting the 500 Words final at St James's Palace in 2015, Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cornwall joined the judging panel of the competition as an Honorary Judge. The other judges were award-winning and best-selling authors Malorie Blackman, Charlie Higson, Frank Cottrell-Boyce and Francesca Simon. They had the gruelling task of selecting the six winners from the Top 50 talented young writers. HRH The Duchess of Cornwall attended the final and presented the Gold winners’ prizes.

Chris Evans says: “Once again, the children of the UK have proved that they are amazing wordsmiths. It’s been such a treat to hear the finalists’ stories bought to life at the final by our very special guest narrators. Keep those imaginations flowing - I absolutely cannot wait for next year!”

Bob Shennan says: “I’m so proud that Radio 2, as well as being the most listened to radio station in the UK, is home to one of the world’s most popular children’s story-writing competitions. 500 WORDS creates a unique snapshot of the imaginations of children in the UK today, due to the huge behind-the-scenes team effort, led by the initiative’s creator Chris Evans, who galvanised over 123,000 children to write a story. Many thanks to the young authors, the 7,000 volunteer teachers and librarians who read all the entries, and the final Judging Panel, who spent hours poring over the Top 50 to decide the winners. Special thanks go to HRH The Duchess of Cornwall for her role as an Honorary Judge.”

The winners are:

10-13 YEARS CATEGORY

GOLD: Ned Marshall - e-COURTROOM.com (read by Nick Jonas), 12 years old from Mid Wales.

Francesca Simon said: “I thought this story was brilliantly original. I loved the way Ned used the 500 Words format to write a tense story while commenting on our modern craze for voting and judging. His grim version of a future where the poor are judged online in 500 words was gripping and thought-provoking. A triumph.”

SILVER: Clara Cowan - The Sands of Time (read by Tom Hiddleston), 10 years old from Glasgow & W Scotland

Malorie Blackman said: “How much do I love The Sands of Time. It is poignant, heartfelt, evocative and beautifully written. With its depiction of dementia and its impact, this story brought a lump to my throat. It effectively gives us a glimpse into the mind of a dementia sufferer and her granddaughter, Kathryn. An incredible story.”

BRONZE: Ben Bailey - The Great Cookie Quest (read by Warwick Davis), 10 years old from Gloucestershire

Frank Cottrell-Boyce said: “When we read this story out loud in the room everyone was laughing. It's genuinely funny. It's a story that escalates from sneaking a biscuit to demolishing a house. Ben cleverly used the diary format to accelerate the escalation. Lots of people try to have a twist at the end of a 500 Words story and it hardly ever works, but Ben really pulled it off. Here's a twist that I didn't see coming but was really satisfying - like an unexpected biscuit.”

5-9 YEARS CATEGORY

GOLD: Evie Fowler - Poor Pig's Revenge (read by Julie Walters), Nine years old from Kent

Charlie Higson said: “What I love about this story is that it really shows how much kids love blood and guts and all things gory, nasty and yucky. What starts out looking like it's going to be a nice little goody-goody story about vegetarianism soon turns into a hilarious horror story as the pig turns the tables on the butcher. The writer obviously had a lot of fun and packed so much into its short length. The story is bursting with energy and also contains what I think was the judges' favourite line in the whole competition "Soon the Shoppe got shut down, due to cannibalism and mystery."

SILVER: Katie Denyer - The Grannies who Flew to the Moon (read by Andy Serkis), Nine years old from Surrey

Frank Cottrell-Boyce said: “We loved Dirty Gerty and Messy Bessy. Their lust for life and sense of adventure was matched only by the swaggering self-confidence of Katie's storytelling. We loved her eye for detail and character, the pink Teacake rocket, but most of all we loved the knitted parachutes.”

BRONZE: Fergus Gathorne-Hardy - The Smoking Pipe (read by Raleigh Ritchie), Eight years old from Suffolk

Francesca Simon said: “What a wonderfully atmospheric time-slip story. Fergus deftly captures the smells and sounds and spooky atmosphere of The Thames at night, with a smoking pipe the doorway between past and present. A genuinely frightening ghost story.”

The 500 WORDS competition, hosted by Chris Evans - whose Breakfast Show has an audience of 9.73 million listeners - asked children aged 13 and under from around the UK to compose an original work of fiction using no more than 500 words. The competition promotes literacy among children, encouraging them to explore their creativity through writing and reading, and providing them with a wealth of tips from published writers and other resources to support their learning. The entries were marked by over 7,000 volunteer teachers and librarians from around the UK, before the Reading Agency drew up a shortlist of the Top 50 stories for the judging panel. Past guest narrators that have read out the winning stories at the final have included Benedict Cumberbatch, Sir Kenneth Branagh, Paloma Faith, Jeremy Irons and Hugh Bonneville.

Following the Oxford University Press (OUP) analysis of the entries for the 2016 500 WORDS competition, a wealth of fascinating insights into the lives of British children and their imaginative use of English emerged.

OUP selected ‘Refugee’ as the Children’s Word of the Year, owing to a significant increase in its usage by entrants writing in this year’s competition, combined with the sophisticated context that children were using it in and the rise in emotive and descriptive language around it. Youngsters showed a sensitive and mature understanding of the issues involved (the war in Syria, the journey across the Mediterranean, people-smugglers, the camps in Calais) and they wrote compassionate, moving stories.

500 WORDS also went interstellar in 2016, and that is because one person really captured children’s imaginations - Tim Peake. The British astronaut was a new entry in the Top 10 list of famous people appearing in the stories. Words associated with space also showed significant increases in usage on previous years - spacewalk, space station, astronaut, asteroid, space shuttle, and rocket all zoomed up. The other space word that saw a huge boost in use was galaxy - this could be due to the recent Star Wars film. It really captured the imagination, resulting in a plethora of lightsabers and Stormtroopers, plus references to Princess Leia, Rey, Han Solo, Darth Vader, and of course for the first time, Kylo Ren. Full details can be found here.

Notes to Editors
500 WORDS was first launched by BBC Radio 2 Chris Evans’ Breakfast Show in 2011. 500 WORDS 2016 launched on Monday 18 January with a specially created short animation featuring HRH The Duchess of Cornwall and Chris Evans, in which they both recorded voice-overs for their own animated character.

AF2

Related Media Centre Links

• ‘Refugee’ revealed as Children’s Word of Year by Oxford University Press for Radio 2 500 WORDS writing competition

Related BBC Links

• BBC Radio 2