The top 50 finalists for 500 Words 2024/25 competition

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Be prepared for laughter, tears and joy as you can read, or listen, to our top 50 stories from the 2024/25 competition.

The competition received thousands of stories from children across the UK. Spelling, punctuation and grammar were not marked - it is the creativeness and imagination that counts!

These stories have embarked on an impressive journey, split into three separate rounds of judging. During round one, our volunteer judges read the thousands of entries and whittled the number down to at least 5000 that progressed to round two.

From there, one of our official partners, The Reading Agency, submitted our top 50. However, this year has been an incredible one for storytelling as we were inundated with brilliant efforts! To celebrate the creativity of our young writers, we’re excited to share our official ‘Highly Commended’ list which highlights the stories that made it to the overall top 100 in this year's competition - a brilliant achievement!

Each story is published how they were submitted and are also performed by voice actors from the BBC Radio Drama Company. You can listen to the top 50 stories from the 2023/25 competition here.

Need more inspiration?