Prize Giving Held for the Young Poets' Competition 2025

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35 winners with their families and teachers wowed by guest poet

The winning young poets with their certificates. Picture: Roger Green

September 29, 2025

During this year's Chiswick Book Festival St Michael and All Angels Church hosted the prize-giving of the Young Poets' Competition 2025.

An annual event in the festival calendar, the competition is now in its fifteenth year. It was established to celebrate and stimulate creativity and writing skills in children and young people. It is open to all children in Years 3-7, and unusually for many poetry competitions, prizes are awarded within each of the five-year groups to ensure children from different age groups are judged separately. Children are invited to write a poem at home, or at school, about whatever inspires them. This year children were also offered a theme “break” to help spark ideas should they need it.

The church was buzzing with enthusiastic young poets from a wide range of state and private schools, including Ark Byron Primary Academy Acton, Twyford C of E High School, Ark Priory, Beavers Community Primary School, Belmont Primary School, Southfield Primary School, Kew College Preparatory School, Chiswick School, Orchard House School. Ravenscourt Preparatory School, St Augustine’ s Priory, The Harrodian School, Newland House School.

35 happy prize winners and their families and teachers were all eager to receive their prizes and hear about the winning poems.

Judges Carol Douglas, Susi Stanley-Caroll, and Nicola Kelly were on hand on to greet the winners and congratulate them on their work. As always, the judging panel had been delighted by the skill and creative energy which crackled through the winning poems, covering many different themes.

The lead judge, poet James Pendle, wowed the audience by creating and reciting a poem shaped entirely from lines and imagery from the children’s winning poems. The prize winners sat rapt waiting to spot one of their lines, as the James read out his ingeniously crafted patchwork poem.

The guest poet was the award-winning, London-based,  Black British writer Dean Atta, known for his heartfelt storytelling rooted in his Greek Cypriot and Jamaican heritage.  Dean writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction for all ages, and was named one of the 100 most influential LGBT+ people in the United Kingdom, by The Independent newspaper.  His poems have appeared  on BBC One, BBC Radio 4, and Channel 4. He also has written and published several young adult verse novels (for children aged 12 and over) including  The Black Flamingo, which won the Stonewall Book Award and was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and Jhalak Prize.

This year's guest poet was Dean Atta. Picture: Roger Green

Dean delighted his audience by performing a variety of his poems, filling the room with fun and pizzazz, and encouraging our young poets to keep writing. He then presented the thrilled young prize winners with their prizes and certificates.

Year 3	1st	Leah Lardieg	I need a break
	2nd	Mabel Price	Together as One
	3rd	Eleanor Sophia Larentzakis	Parents need a break!
	3rd	Harry Jorgensen	Wimbledon Play-off Final
3rd	Luke Grindal	Breaktime
Year 4	1st	Charlotte Macdonald	The Fox
	2nd	Althaea Kwasnicki	Snack Break
	3rd	Charlie Peacock Rowan	Break 5
	3rd	Karima Aldewaihee	My Best Friend
	Commended	Alex Obhlidal	The Mass of Green
	Commended	Harriet Pateras	Time to play
	Commended	Mariella Rowe	Peace
Year 5	1st	Lea Parrot-Goia	Break 2
	2nd	Jessica Gardner	Me and my Emotions
	3rd	Harry Peacock Rowan	Starting New
	3rd	India Goldsmith	Sometimes you just need a break
	Commended	Barney Elliott	Dawn Breaks
	Commended	Blue Roberts	Breaking Free
	Commended	Felix Levesques	The Boys At Breaktime
	Commended	Hadiyah Ibrahim	The Breaktime Madness!!!
Year 6	1st	Amila Abdrakhmanova	Take a Break
	2nd	Thomas Beard	Break2
	3rd	Arham Umer	Rain
	3rd	James Hamilton	The Broken Man
	Commended	Adin Zukic	A Break in the Weather
	Commended	George Hollis	The Great Horned Owl
	Commended	Miles Breen	Don’t Doodle with the Devil
Year 7	1st	Zarah Aboki	Break (2)
	2nd	Gilly Roper Rawson	Friendship is a pot of clay
	2nd	Logan Fiddes	Where the Heart Breaks, the Universe Begins
	3rd	Mirella Nikolova	Break
	3rd	Youssra El-Briek	Summer Fun
	Commended	Laila Prevett	Broken Will
	Commended	Muyun Zhang	Night
	Commended	Sophia Sri Skanda Rajah	My Heart is Strong

As always , the event and certificates were sponsored by ChiswickW4.com.

Independent book shop, Bookcase London, based in Chiswick , once again provided sumptuous book prizes for each young poet and the Chiswick Flower Market  gave each a lovely canvas bag to hold their goodies.

Chiswick Waterstones is once again kindly displaying the winning poems in their store - so go along and take a look. Perhaps it will inspire your own writing...

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