Young writer from St Wilfrid's named regional award winner

Katelan Precious Carter, 13, fought off tough competition from children all over the region with her story ‘Flooded Future’.

The competition, organised by tuition provider, Explore Learning which has a centre in Crawley, is now in its ninth year. This year’s judge was TV presenter and adventurer, Steve Backshall. Over 10,000 children from all over the UK entered in an effort to win a trip to Disneyland Paris and £500 worth of books for their school. The winner was surprised in a school assembly by Steve, who announced David Williams from Barking as the National Young Writer of the Year. Every child that entered will receive a certificate to celebrate their story, along with personalised feedback from Explore Learning. The ten runners up will also win an engraved pen from National Stationery Week sponsors, Sheaffer. All regional winners will receive prize bundles with goodies from National Stationery Week partners, Nu notebooks, Write Size, Manuscript and Stabilo.

This year’s theme was ‘The Future’ and children were tasked with writing a 500 word story set in 3017. Robots were overwhelmingly the most popular characters and appeared in almost a third of the entries, whilst teleport, rockets and jets were the common modes of transport in this fictional 3017 setting. Meanwhile, planet earth was the most popular location, followed by the Moon and Mars.

Steve Backshall says: “The quality of the stories was beyond belief! If I didn’t know this was a competition for young writers, I’d believe I was reading the scribblings of Isaac Asimov or Philip K Dick, and while there were elements from the great works of science fiction, every story was original, and had its own sense of individuality. What astounded me more than anything was that these young people had not only imagined future worlds, but imbued them with the conundrums of our modern planet.”

Don’t miss out on all the latest breaking news where you live.

Here are four ways you can be sure you’ll be amongst the first to know what’s going on.

1) Make our website your homepage at www.crawleyobserver.co.uk

2) Like our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/crawleyobserver

3) Follow us on Twitter @Crawley_Obby

4) Register with us by clicking on ‘sign in’ (top right corner). You can then receive our daily newsletter AND add your point of view to stories that you read here.

And do share with your family and friends - so they don’t miss out!

The Crawley Observer - always the first with your local news.

Be part of it.