Day: March 8, 2024

BBC’s 500 Words competition winners announced

The winners of the UK’s most successful children’s writing competition, 500 Words, have been unveiled on World Book Day® in a special episode of The One Show – 500 Words with The One Show – on BBC One and iPlayer.

From thousands of talented entries, six exceptional young authors who submitted their stories to the BBC’s 500 words competition were crowned last week at the Grand Final in Buckingham Palace, with their identities kept secret until the big reveal on today’s special edition of The One Show.

Her Majesty the Queen invited Romesh Ranganathan and a host of celebrity readers including Hugh Bonneville, Oti Mabuse, Luke Evans, Olivia Dean, Tom Hiddleston and star of Matilda, Alisha Weir, to Buckingham Palace for the final event which opened with a special performance of ‘Pure Imagination’ from ‘Wonka’, courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures, followed by ‘When I Grow Up’ performed by the West End cast of Matilda The Musical.

All the excitement from entire event, including all the live performances by celebrity readers of the winning stories, will be available to watch on CBBC at 4pm Friday 8 March.

Speaking at the Grand Final, Her Majesty The Queen said: “In the three years that we have been without this wonderful competition, I think we have realised how much we have missed it.

“Over the years, it has actually turned into half a billion words that have been written, typed, scribbled and tumbled onto thousands of pages by children across the UK, read by an army of volunteers and then sent to Oxford University Press to form the biggest collection of children’s writing in the world.

“That means that between you, you have created more than a million stories of thought-provoking adventure for future generations to study and enjoy. Thank you to everybody who has taken part in 500 Words – it is a huge pleasure to have you back.”

BBC Head of Education, Helen Foulkes said: “It’s incredible that we received almost 44,000 entries – the calibre of stories submitted this year have been exceptionally high.

“500 Words is all about encouraging children from across the UK to enjoy writing and let their imaginations run wild, without fear of spelling, punctuation or grammar. Our hope is that every child that entered continues to fall in love with writing.”

The six winners were chosen from two age group categories, ages 5-7 and 8-11 with each consisting of gold, silver and bronze awards.

500 Words Gold Winners

  • The GOLD Winner for 5-7 age group is Evan from London, his story, Message in a Bottle was read by singer Olivia Dean. Evan said: “I like writing descriptions, letters and diaries.”
  • The GOLD Winner for the 8-11 age group is Olive from London, her story, Cellmate was read by actor, Tom Hiddleston. Olive said: “It came from the depths of my brain, I never knew what was down there, now I do!”

500 Words Silver Winners

  • The SILVER Winner for the 5-7 age group is Clara from Leicestershire, her story, Pony With a Coat on – Solving Crimes was read by Matilda star, Alisha Weir.
  • The SILVER Winner for the 8-11 age group was Spencer from Glasgow, his story, The Scottish Gangsta was read by Hugh Bonneville.

500 Words Bronze Winners

  • The BRONZE Winner for the 5-7 age group was Henry from Oxfordshire, his story The Alien and the Purple Planet was read by Oti Mabuse.
  • The BRONZE Winner for the 8-11 age group was Aaron from Oxfordshire, his story A Very Important Lesson was read by actor and singer, Luke Evans.

The 500 Words judges included Sir Lenny Henry, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Francesca Simon, Charlie Higson, and Malorie Blackman, who were chaired by BBC Breakfast’s Jon Kay.

Each of the finalist’s stories are available to read now on the BBC Teach website, alongside audio versions which have been voiced specially by BBC Radio Drama Actors

Scottish Government launches Women and Girls Fund

Commitment to enhance gender equality and women’s rights internationally

Women and girls in Malawi, Rwanda and Zambia will be given the opportunity to design and deliver a new fund to advance gender equality and the rights of women and girls in their own countries.

The new Women and Girls Fund is supported by £3 million from the Scottish Government’s International Development Fund and will be delivered over four years.

The lead delivery partner for the Fund is the international research consultancy Ecorys, working in collaboration with FAWE (Forum for African Women Educationalists) in three of the Scottish Government’s International Development partner countries. The fund will take a participatory approach, being co-developed by women and girls, and women and girl-led organisations in the three countries.

International Development Minister Kaukab Stewart said: “Gender inequality remains one of the greatest human rights challenges globally, and we must work together to address this.

“Reflecting our commitment to equalise power, the Women and Girls Fund will provide direct support to local women and girl-led organisations in our Sub-Saharan African partner countries.

“Direct funding is central to driving transformational change; this fund will empower women and girls, locally, to define and meet their own priorities.

“As we mark International Women’s Day, it is fitting that we launch this incredibly valuable programme, which puts feminist principles into action and will help us to advocate for a world without gender inequality.”

Ecorys Team Leader Mpala Nkonkomalimba said: “The funding opportunity cannot be coming at a more opportune time, as women and girls are still struggling to have voice in decision making processes and with the global economic downturn, they continue to be the face of poverty.

“Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) capacities to respond to the many emerging global and national issues affecting women and girls needs to be built and what is exciting is that the fund is planned to be participatory with CSOs themselves co-creating the funding mechanism.”