大象传媒

After a decade of wonderful entries, 大象传媒 500 Words is undoubtedly the UK’s biggest story-writing competition for children aged between 5 and 13. More than ever, the 大象传媒 want to encourage competition entries from all children: no matter what their ability, experience or background. It’s a myth that 大象传媒 500 Words entrants have to be prodigies of the English language with aspirations of becoming the next J.K.Rowling… the competition is not just for the students who have an inherent love of writing but for anyone who has an amazing idea.

The 大象传媒 500 Words competition gives all young people the opportunity to write about a subject they care about without the usual shackles of accurate spelling, grammar and punctuation. With the current emphasis on SPaG within the curriculum, there’s no wonder that some children are falling out of love with writing; 500 Words is different… it's all about creativity and entries can be about anything that children want to write about – spaceships, football, false teeth or even custard-eating, talking orangutans. No idea is off limits; the bigger the better! Any child can get involved from whatever educational background: all they need is imagination.

Interested? Find out how 大象传媒 Teach and the UK’s leading provider of digital teaching resources, Twinkl, have made writing for and entering into 大象传媒 500 Words 2020 even easier...

The 大象传媒 500 Words Live Lesson

Throughout January and February, your class (or better yet, your whole school) can stream the 大象传媒 500 Words Live Lesson at any time convenient to you and your busy school curriculum via the 大象传媒’s internet catch-up service.

The 大象传媒 500 Words Live Lesson is free, interactive and engaging. Presented by children’s favourites, 大象传媒 Radio 2's Breakfast Show host Zoe Ball, C大象传媒’s Rhys Stephenson and Hacker T Dog, the 40-minute show is a hassle and planning-free way to hook all KS1 to KS3 pupils into taking on the challenge of writing a story using 500 words or fewer.

Some of the 500 Words 2020 judging panel also get in on the fun, including the award-winning children’s authors:

• Charlie Higson
• Francesca Simon
• Frank Cotterell-Boyce

What Does the Lesson Involve?

The 大象传媒 Words Live Lesson helps you to teach children about writing for a real purpose and for a real audience. The major message throughout the lesson is that every single competition entry will be read and judged anonymously, without regard to grammar, punctuation or spelling. Children’s creativity is key so this isn’t about teachers only entering their ‘best’ story writers; it’s about giving all students the opportunity to have their storytelling voices heard.

The lesson itself explores the idea of time travel and how the past, present and future can inspire your pupils’ own short stories, with interactive activities and discussion about:

• connecting with an audience;
• building a plot;
• inventing characters;
• exciting story endings.

Better still, Twinkl have produced a range of KS1, LKS2, UKS2 and KS3 teaching packs to reinforce the main themes of the live session. Helping you to save time, the packs include ready-to-use tasks with supporting resources, worksheets and visual aids.

Twinkl’s 大象传媒 500 Words Teaching Resources

You can easily download Twinkl’s teaching materials in partnership with the 大象传媒 from the website. By using these accompanying free resources, the follow-up to the live lesson becomes planning-free with our 大象传媒 500 Words Competition Live Lesson: Mission 500 Teaching Packs that are available for , , and .

We understand that some children find story-writing demanding so each teaching pack contains resources that can be easily differentiated, aiming to give pupils a step-by-step guide to planning and writing their own 500-word short story. Each pack contains:

PowerPoints

Twinkl’s PowerPoint presentations each include a collection of fun warm-up activities designed to follow on from the concepts and techniques discussed in the 大象传媒 Live Lesson. They aim to inspire character and plot creation with helpful advice about hooking in readers.

Knowledge Organisers

For additional support, the packs also contain genre-specific knowledge organisers to help with independent writing and spelling.

Twinkl have also created a handy with an interactive PowerPoint and accompanying script, which can be used to introduce the competition or as a follow-up after watching the live lesson.

大象传媒 500 Words Competition Prizes

As well as being a fabulous opportunity for children to write for pleasure, there’s also a chance that your students could win a prize! The writers of the top 50 stories get to attend the spectacular 500 Words Final at Buckingham Palace where superstar celebrities will read the winning stories live on 大象传媒 Radio 2!

The winners in each age category will also receive:

Gold Winners - Chris Evans' height in books and 500 books for their school library.

Silver Winners - HRH The Duchess of Cornwall's height in books.

Bronze Winners - Their own height in books.

And brand new for 2020, one lucky entrant will be selected at random to receive a fabulous book bundle for themselves and their school as well as an invite to the star-studded final at the palace!

Teachers also have the option to reward every pupils’ story-writing effort by downloading a 500 Words Certificate for all entrants.

Entries can be submitted until 27th February at 8pm.