What are the 500 Words prizes?

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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 took place at Buckingham Palace in February 2025 and 50 finalists were invited, along with a parent or carer.

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

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

On top of this, each winning story received an original illustration from one of the best children's illustrators in the UK. The winning stories took 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 did they have their story bought to life, the six illustrated stories were framed, each winner taking home a special 500 Words winners' book.

As an added incentive for schools to enter, every story (excluding bronze, silver and gold winners) was entered into a random draw, which took place at the start of February. The entrant not only received a ticket to the final (with a parent or guardian) and a bundle of books for themselves, but their school was also given 500 books and a literacy wall art, to promote the love of story-telling.

We want all children of all abilities and backgrounds to enter, so for the 2024/25 competition, we offered £50 National Book Tokens to schools with 50% of children on free school meals and three £10 book tokens for their pupils. All schools needed to do was submit at least one story and once the competition closed in November, we contacted schools directly to share the rewards.

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