Children’s Poetry Competition 2015 – A Little Learning
The subject for our 2015 poetry competition is school. Whether you love it or loathe it, the chances are you know quite a lot about the subject and have some strong opinions which you could express in verse form.
Please Note The 2015 poetry competition is now closed, so you can't submit new entries, but you can enjoy reading the winning poems and the other entries, or you could write a poem about a school member, just for fun.
What can I write about?
You can pick any aspect of school life as the subject for your poem. I’m not going to tell you what you can or can’t write about, but if you’re struggling for inspiration some suggestions which spring to mind include:
- Teachers and what makes them great or gruesome
- School subjects, lessons, exams or homework
- Games, sports and other extra-curricular activities
- Friends or enemies you’ve made at school
- School food (nothing too disgusting please)
- What I do during the course of a school day
- Starting at a new school or leaving an old one
- Rules, regulations, crimes and punishments
What’s more, you can write in any style or form that you choose. It could be funny or sad, rhyming or not, true-to-life or entirely imaginary. You could write it in a recognised form – limerick, sonnet or clerihew – or try something more experimental, such as a shape poem or an acrostic.
We particularly enjoy receiving illustrated poems, so feel free to add drawings or graphics to add colour and impact to your poem.
I’m home schooled, can I take part?
Many of our readers, including some of our most loyal competition entrants, are home schooled. This doesn’t mean that you can’t take part in the competition. Simply adapt the guidance and choose an aspect of your home schooling as the subject for your poem.
Guidance for teachers
We love to receive entries that have been written by pupils during their lessons. If you’re planning that your pupils enter the competition, please make sure you allow enough time for the children to write and revise their poems. It works best if spread over two lessons with ‘preparation and thinking time’ in between, or as a homework activity. I’m not sure anyone could be expected to write a prize winning poem in a single lesson.
If you’d like to submit entries on behalf of your pupils, you are most welcome to do so. However, entries submitted individually receive a personalised reply with comments on the submitted poem, which many children find adds to the enjoyment of taking part in the competition.
The rules
There aren’t too many rules and they’re really easy to follow:
- You must create a poem about a subject related to school or education
- You must be aged 16 or under at the time of writing the poem
- The poem you submit must be your own, original piece of work
- A maximum of three poems per person may be submitted
- The poem can take any form or style, but try to keep it under 20 lines
- Children from anywhere in the world can take part in the contest
- The deadline for the submission of entries is now 31th October 2015.
Judging and awarding prizes
The poems will be judged in three separate age categories:
- Poems by children aged 8 or under
- Poems by children aged 9 to 11
- Poems by children aged 12 to 16
There will be one prize of £50 awarded in each of the age categories to the author of the poem which is, in the view of the judge(s), the best poem of those submitted. There may be additional runner up prizes awarded at the discretion on the judge.
The competition will be judged by an independent judge or judges. The results will be announced and the prize winners individually notified during October 2015.
Sending in your poems
If you'd like to enter the competition, please email your poem to Patrick at . We’ll aim to put all the poems submitted up on our website so that they can be enjoyed by all our readers.
When submitting your entry, please remember to include the following things:
- The poem
You can send your poem or poems either as an attachment or in the main body of the email. - Your name, age and where you live
Please provide your full name (first and last names) and how old you were when you wrote the poem. You don't need to give us your full address, just the town, city or country where you live will be sufficient. When we publish your poem on our website, we'll include only your first name, your age and where you live e.g. a poem by Chris, aged 10 from Colchester, UK. - Why you wrote the poem
Try to tell us a little bit about more about the writing of your poem. Why did you pick the subject you chose? Did you enjoy writing the poem? Did it take you a long time? Have you shown it to your family or your teacher?
Our competition has amazing prizes, but most importantly it’s an opportunity to share your love of writing with readers form around the world.
Have fun and we look forward to reading your poems!
View the Entries
As the competition entries pour in, we'll be adding them to the pages below, which are categorised accodring to the age of the author.
