Short Story Competition 2026

This competition is open to all children in P6–P7 who want to join in.

You! We want to see your amazing ideas, so please no group stories.
Make sure the story is all yours – no help from robots or AI 🤖🚫, just your own creative brain.

Parents can give advice or ideas, but the story must be written by you.

There’s no special theme, but we want your story to be set in your local area. Feel free to include real people, like famous figures or people from history, if you’d like! Your story can happen anytime: in the past, right now, or even in the future – the choice is yours! 

Your story can be as long as you like, but it can’t go over 500 words. (That’s about the length of a page or two – just the right amount of space for your big ideas!) 

You can write your story by hand or type it up and print it out. You can include pictures if you want! 

If you prefer, you can record yourself reading out your story and send it in. 

I'll  be looking for 5 things when we read your story: 

Plot – What happens in your story? 

Originality – How creative and unique are your ideas? 

Characterisation – Are your characters interesting and fun? 

Language – How well do you tell the story and use words? 

Creativity Over Spelling – Don’t worry about perfect spelling or grammar – we’re looking for your amazing imagination!