Clubs and competitions
One way you can enrich your English skills and knowledge is to take part in extra-curricular clubs and competitions. We run several different clubs, as well as our annual creative writing competitions, and we encourage students to take part in prestigious national and international competitions.
Competitions to enter right now
If you like the sound of any of these, want to enter, but feel as if you need a little bit of help getting started, just speak to your English teacher. They’ll be happy to help.
National and international competitions
One Teen Story Contest
The 2027 One Teen Story Teen Writing Contest will open for submissions on October 20, 2026, and close on December 1, 2026. They are interested in great short stories of any genre about the teen experience—literary, fantasy, sci-fi, love stories, horror, etc. The winning stories will be published on our website. The contest winners will receive $500 upon publication. To enter, you must be between the ages of 13-19 as of December 1, 2026. Short stories should be between 2,000 to 4,500 words and be unpublished work. More details here.
The Young Walter Scott Prize
This prestigious competition is for those aged between 11 and 19 and interested in history and writing. This is the UK’s only creative writing prize specifically for budding historical fiction writers. You could win a £500 travel grant, tickets to one of the UK’s best book festivals, and the chance to see your own work in print in a special anthology. Stories must be between 800 and 2,000 words and set in a time before you were born. You have until 31st October 2026 to get your entries in. More details here.
The Solstice Nature Prize
The Solstice Nature Prize is a national, annual writing competition for young writers, which invites young people to take a closer look at the natural world, explore their relationship with it, or examine the challenges it faces, and write short stories, poems, and thought-provoking blogs in response. They are looking for entries about any aspect of nature and offer prizes for winners in four age groups: 7-11, 12-14, 15-17 and 18-25 years. The closing date is the 10th October 2026. More details here.
Clubs and competitions in school
Enter one of our annual creative writing competitions
We run a number of competitions throughout the year, every year. If you happen to win, you will receive Bonus Levels to your overall English Level, plus one of our legendary trophies. The regular competitions are:
The Cursed Pen – our annual horror writing competition
The Green Dagger – our annual crime writing competition
The SHSG Poetry Prize – our annual poetry competition
Join our Debating Society
Students in Years 7-10 will be able to learn the skills of debating, practise debates for fun and take part in internal and external debate competitions.
Join our Creative Writing Group
Our creative writing group (for students in KS3 and 4) meets every week to practise and share their work.
Join the GCSE Bookclub
Students in Year 10 will be able to join our Bookclub (from January), in which they’ll read some brilliant super-curricular books and talk about them. The Bookclub will continue to run for Year 11 students until Christmas.