Two children from Oxfordshire have won awards in the UK’s most successful children’s writing competition, 500 Words.
The bronze winner for the five to seven age group was Henry from Oxfordshire with his story The Alien and the Purple Planet.
And Aaron won bronze for the 8-11 age group with his story A Very Important Lesson.
The winners were unveiled on World Book Day (Thursday March 7) in a special episode of BBC1's The One Show.
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The grand final was held at Buckingham Palace attended by the Queen and celebrities including Romesh Ranganathan, Hugh Bonneville, Oti Mabuse, Luke Evans, Olivia Dean, Tom Hiddleston and star of Matilda, Alisha Weir who read out the winning stories.
The event opened with a special performance of ‘Pure Imagination’ from ‘Wonka’ followed by ‘When I Grow Up’ performed by the West End cast of Matilda The Musical.
Speaking at the Grand Final, The Queen said: “In the three years that we have been without this wonderful competition, I think we have realised how much we have missed it.
"Over the years, it has actually turned into half a billion words that have been written, typed, scribbled and tumbled onto thousands of pages by children across the UK, read by an army of volunteers and then sent to Oxford University Press to form the biggest collection of children’s writing in the world.
"That means that between you, you have created more than a million stories of thought-provoking adventure for future generations to study and enjoy.
"Thank you to everybody who has taken part in 500 Words – it is a huge pleasure to have you back.”
The 500 Words judges included Sir Lenny Henry, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Francesca Simon, Charlie Higson, and Malorie Blackman, who were chaired by BBC Breakfast’s Jon Kay.
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BBC Head of Education, Helen Foulkes said: “It’s incredible that we received almost 44,000 entries - the calibre of stories submitted this year have been exceptionally high.
"500 Words is all about encouraging children from across the UK to enjoy writing and let their imaginations run wild, without fear of spelling, punctuation or grammar.
"Our hope is that every child that entered continues to fall in love with writing.”
All the live performances by celebrity readers of the winning stories, will be available to watch on CBBC at 4pm Friday March 8.
Each of the finalist’s stories are available to read now on the BBC Teach website, alongside audio versions which have been voiced specially by BBC Radio Drama Actors.
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