Welcome to the SCEMES KS2
National Short Story Competition

The results for the SCEMES ‘One World’ Short Story Competition are now in and we’re pleased to announce the winners!

We’d like to wish Bethany, Naomi, Cerys and Pelin many congratulations on their winning stories, which all show an excellent engagement with the ‘One World’ theme and display sensitive, imaginative writing.

First Prize
Bethany Sercombe wins the fantastic first prize of £2,500 for her school as well as an amazing Arctic Ice Adventure Holiday for herself in Swedish Lapland!

Bethany’s prize, donated by the responsible travel company Explore, gives her and one adult the opportunity to enjoya thrilling 5-day break in the frozen forests and lakes of Swedish Lapland, with a chance to enjoy a host of winter activities like dog and reindeer sledding, snowmobiling, snowshoeing and ice fishing.

Bethany will even stay overnight at the famous Icehotel, where everything including the beds are made of solid ice! And there's a very good chance that she will enjoy one of nature's greatest spectacles: the 'Northern Lights'!

Click here for more information about Bethany’s prize.

Other Prizes
Second prize winner Naomi Adam is the lucky winner of £1,500 for her school and is also able to choose a fantastic prize for herself up to the value of £500!

Joint third prize winners Cerys Marshall and Pelin Morgan both win £250 for their schools and can choose prizes up to the value of £125 each.

Judging
The SCEMES National Short Story Competition was judged by multi-award-winning children’s author Alan Gibbons, The Sustainable Development Commission’s Commissioner for Education, Ann Finlayson, and author and educationalist Bill Laar. 

The judges thoroughly enjoyed reading the stories submitted to the SCEMES Short Story Competition and were very impressed with the standard of the entries received.

Competition judge Ann Finlayson commented: “It was a pleasure to read such imaginative stories. Some made me hopeful, some sad, some made me gasp and some made me laugh!

“The pupils took on very complex issues – environmental degradation and social injustice – and interwove it with great understanding of us as humans – our foibles, our loves, our cares. It gave me real hope that with this understanding we could create One World worth saving!” 

Children’s author Alan Gibbons added that all the stories were of “…a very high standard, ambitious and reflecting an understanding of the various genres on which a writer could draw on this subject. It was a pleasure to experience so much talent!”

The results were calibrated by combining the marks of all three judges, and having counted all the scores, Bethany Sercombe was pronounced as the clear winner.

Judges Report
The judges called Bethany’s winning story, Little Brown Alien, “an excellent parable, that was well ordered and intelligently planned” and praised the inventiveness of her idea as well as the clever use of contrast in the story.

Naomi’s story ‘Slavery’ was highly commended by the judges as being “powerfully written, with a powerful subject matter and excellent vocabulary,” and noted for its strong and powerful imagery.

Cerys’ third prize winning story ‘The Phoenix Re-Born’ was judged to be “a well-written myth, drawing on a powerful story telling tradition” and particularly noted for its uplifting theme of re-birth and the clever way in which the author wove facts into the story.

The judges also admired Pelin Morgan’s story of reconciliation, ‘One World, One Family’, which was described as “a passionate story that used dialogue very effectively.”   

Highly Commended
Roughly 400 stories were entered into the SCEMES National Short Story Competition, and it was with great pleasure that the judges read all the stories submitted.

All the pupils that entered the competition engaged imaginatively and emotionally with the theme of ‘One World’ and explored a variety of themes affecting the world today in their stories.

The stories themselves were extremely diverse in terms of style and subject matter. Some portrayed dystopian visions of a future world destroyed by climate change, others contained powerful messages on how we can help improve the state of our planet, whilst others looked at conflicts between people of different cultures, or explored parts of the planet very different from that which we know.  

Competition judge Ann Finlayson commented: “I particularly enjoyed the many different lenses the children chose to look at our world and to show how we behave on it. There was everything from the perspective of animals, future generations, people from different cultures and times, and even the perspective of an aluminium can!”

The following stories were chosen as highly commended entries from all those submitted and we wish to extend our congratulations to all the authors listed here for their exceptional stories:

We’d like to thank all the pupils and schools that entered the SCEMES National Short Story Competition. We had hundreds of fantastic stories submitted to the competition and it has been a real pleasure to read them all.

Click here to read a selection of the stories entered into the competition and please feel free to browse the site for further information about the competition and sustainable schools.

Please check the site again soon for reactions from the winners and details of the prize-giving ceremonies.