Hundreds of Oxfordshire schoolchildren put pen to paper to take part in a poetry competition.

More than 600 children from across the county entered the contest, which was organised by Oxford Brookes University.

The university's poetry centre wrote to every primary and secondary school in the county to ask them to enter and pupils from 30 schools sent in verses.

Primary pupils were asked to write on the theme of moving, and secondary pupils on the theme of connecting.

The winner of the primary school contest was 10-year-old Ruby Ellis, from Rye St Antony School, in Pullens Lane, Headington, with Katie Kennet Moving, and the winner of the secondary category was Aska Matsunaga, 15, a pupil at the Wychwood School, in Banbury Road, Oxford, for Connecting: 50p To Spare Her.

Aska, whose poem was about world poverty and child soldiers, said: "I was really surprised to win. I wasn't expecting it at all.

"We were studying poems in class and it was really interesting, so I decided to write more and more and more."

Poetry centre director Dr Rachel Buxton said: "We were absolutely delighted by the response and by how the topics were interpreted in such original and inventive ways.

"There was some real imagination and creativity in the responses and there just seemed to be so much pleasure and fun that the students were having with the language.

"It suggests there's a lot of potential out there and a lot of people are writing poetry."

The winners received £150, the second-placed poems £75, and third-placed entries £30, while 10 runners-up received £10 Blackwell's book tokens.

Rubk and Aska's schools also won an afternoon poetry workshop with Oxford poet Helen Kidd, who judged the contest.

She said: "The most appealing poems were those that were full of life, energy, linguistic enthusiasm and general appreciation for the textures of language."

Next year the poetry centre's outreach programme will be a project putting Oxford poets together with asylum seekers to produce poetry collaboratively.

It is planned to produce a book from the work that results.