Last year, I worked with Premier League Primary Stars to promote their educational campaign across primary schools in England and Wales.
I’ll confess that I didn’t know much about the initiative at all beforehand, but my childrens’ love of football had me intrigued to get involved and learn more.
I discovered that Writing Stars is all about inspiring children to write, in a way that doesn’t have to involve football at all if that’s not your child’s thing.
I soon became very impressed with HOW the writing stars scheme was championing a love of creative writing. The poetry competition last year was centred around the theme of resilience. We got to hear the competition winners read their entries and I was staggered by their poetic talent at such young ages. You can read that blog post here.
Following the success of the competition’s first year, the Premier League Writing Stars poetry competition is back this year with a really great theme: Diversity.
I love the message of the poem Beautifully Different, Wonderfully the Same, written specially for the Writing Stars competition by Joseph Coelho.
Watch the video below to hear the poem read aloud by an all-star cast!
The judges
Competition entries will be judged by former Premier League footballer Rio Ferdinand, singer and songwriter Olly Murs, Waterstone’s Children’s Laureate Lauren Child, and poet Joseph Coelho. Casia Wiliam, current Bardd Plant Cymru (Welsh-language Children’s Poet Laureate) will guest judge all Welsh-language entries. All judging will be overseen by National Literacy Trust Director, Jonathan Douglas.
They will be paying close attention to vocabulary, elements of poetry, originality and appeal. Most importantly, children’s poetry must be about diversity, and how that is represented within their work. Writing Stars resources will ask the following-
- How are you different and special?
- Why are differences so important?
- Can our differences bring us together to be part of the same team?
How to enter this year’s Writing Stars competition
The competition is open to children aged between five and eleven, who are currently in Primary & Junior schools across the UK. Teachers need to register and enter pupils work, either as a class or as individuals. The competition is open to all schools across England and Wales. Visit here to enter: https://plprimarystars.com/competitions/writing-stars
The deadline to register and send in your poetry entry is Friday December 21st, 2018.
This post is a paid collaboration with Premier League Writing Stars
