This year, many of our pupils were open to opportunities and participated in The Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition (QCEC), which is the world’s oldest international writing competition for schools and has been proudly delivered by the Royal Commonwealth Society since 1883.

We are proud of all those pupils who entered this challenging competition and congratulate them on their success in winning 9 gold, 16 silver and 2 bronze awards this year. This is an outstanding achievement which evidences the power our pupils’ voices have around the world.

We would like to thank Ms Ives, who led the arrangements, and to all her colleagues in the English Department for supporting the pupils with their entries.

THE COMPETITION

The competition seeks to introduce young people to the idea of writing for fun, developing key literacy skills and working to increase academic attainment. Through its promotion of literacy and writing skills, the competition contributes to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals in over 60 countries and territories and encourages the global awareness of all participants.

Each year, young people write on a theme that stems from the Commonwealth’s values and principles. Recent themes have focused on the environment, inclusion, the role of youth leadership, and gender equality. Their pieces drew out innovative ideas for positive change and encouraged young people to consider new perspectives.

Past winners have gone on to become leaders in their fields, including the Prime Minister of Singapore, a Pulitzer Prize winner and the renowned author, the late Elspeth Huxley CBE.

This year, writing on the theme of ‘Our Common Wealth’. Pupils used prompts to interpret the theme various ways, writing about ideas such as ‘taking small steps against the climate crisis’, ‘the biggest issues facing the world today’ and even engaging with the Samoan tradition of ‘aiga’ meaning ‘family’, in which entrants were asked to share something from their own cultures and traditions with the world.