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

BBC Young Writer’s Award 2026: This is the most prestigious award for young writers in the UK.  Entrants aged between 14 and 18 have to submit a short story of a 1,000 words or less.  The deadline for receipt of entries is 23rd March 2026.  More details here.‍ ‍

Author of Tomorrow Award: The Author of Tomorrow Award is designed to find the adventure writers of the future. It is an annual competition open to young people across the world who have completed a short piece of adventure writing in English. Prizes are from £100 to £1000.  It closes on 19th April.  More details here.

Orwell Youth Prize:  This prestigious competition provides free feedback and online resources to support all young writers.  The Prize is open to anyone in years 7-13 who is at school or college in the United Kingdom.  This year’s theme is ‘truth’.  The deadline for entries is the 29th April.  More details here.

D.H. Lawrence Children's Prize: Writing Competition

This competition is open to those between the ages of 4 and 16, and you can submit your short stories and poems for a chance to win a kindle and national book tokens.  The competition asks you to write an original fictional short story or poem on the theme of ‘friendship’ (no more than 500 words in length).  The competition closes on the 17th May.  More details here.

Quay Words Young Writers' Flash Fiction Competition

This competition invites entrants between the ages of 10 and 18 to send them Flash Fiction; write a 250 or 500-word story on the theme of ‘Between the Lines.’ There are two age categories – 10-14 years and 14-18 years – with cash prizes in each category of £200, £100 and £50, plus the chance to be published and to perform your work at Exeter Custom House.  They are looking for an inventive story, with a maximum word count of 500 words in the 10-14 year age-category and 250 words in the 14-18 year age-category.  Entries close on the 18th May.  More details here.

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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.