Huge congratulations to Ibrahim Ahmed (Y3), who has been named a finalist in this year’s BBC 500 Words writing competition!
Ibrahim is one of just 50 children (and 25 in his age group) to make it to the Grand Final, which will be held on World Book Day in February at Buckingham Palace and televised on The One Show. With the competition receiving a staggering 10,000 entries each year, making it this far is a tremendous achievement.
Ibrahim’s brilliant entry tells the tale of a group of boys searching for a cool place to play cricket. They decide to play under the mango trees, but their grandfather says they can’t as they may hit the mangoes and make them fall. So, what to do? Why, plant their own mango trees and then play cricket under these instead!
Ibrahim explained that his story was inspired by his Pakistani heritage and his love for cricket and mangoes.
In addition to writing, Ibrahim also loves reading (though not quite as much as he loves cricket!). He has already earned a million-word reading badge and borrows books from the Inky Library (for boys in Y5 to Y8), specifically selected for him by our Librarian, Mrs. Lumley-Wood.
He is also a regular in his local library and his current favourite book is from the Diary of an 8-Bit Warrior series, set in the Minecraft world.
When asked why he loves reading so much, Ibrahim said, “Reading gives you knowledge, and you can picture the characters and have them in your head.”
We look forward to seeing Ibrahim on The One Show on World Book Day. We are keeping our fingers crossed that his story is voted one of the six best, as these will be brought to life with an original illustration from one of the UK’s top children’s authors. Winners will also receive a framed copy to take home and, fittingly for a competition about stories, a huge bundle of books.
