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< 500 Words < Everything about 500 Words

We all know competition means one thing… prizes, and there are some unbelievable prizes up for grabs. Supported by Her Majesty The Queen, our grand final will take place at Buckingham Palace in February 2025 and 50 finalists will be invited, along with a parent or carer.

Each winner in both age categories will take home a bundle of books:

• Gold winning stories will receive the height of Sir Lenny Henry in books
• Silver will win the height of Her Majesty The Queen in books
• Bronze winners will the average height of a child relevant to their age category in books
• The gold winners in both categories will also win 500 books for their school library.

On top of this, each winning story will receive an original illustration from some of the best children's authors in the UK. The winning stories could take home an original illustration from Dapo Adeola, Nigel Parkinson, Lydia Monks, Momoko Abe, Rob Biddulph or Yasmeen Ismail. Why not browse last year's illustrations?

Not only will they have their story bought to life, the six illustrated stories will be framed and each child will get a 500 Words winners’ book to take home.

As an added incentive for schools to enter, every story (excluding bronze, silver and gold winners) will be entered into a random draw, which will take place at the start of February. The entrant will not only receive a ticket to the final (with a parent or guardian) and a bundle of books for themselves, but their school will be given 500 books and , to promote the love of story-telling. We will notify the successful entrant by in February.

We want all children, of all abilities and backgrounds, to enter so we will be offering £50 National Book Tokens to schools with 50% of children on free school meals and three £10 book tokens for their pupils. All schools need to do is submit at least one story and once the competition closes in November, we will contact schools directly and share the rewards.

If you do not hear from us by the end of November and you believe you are eligible please contact the 500 Words team on 500words@bbc.co.uk.

Need more inspiration?