Clubs and competitions

One way you can enrich your English skills and knowledge is to take part in extra-curricular clubs and competitions. We run several different clubs, as well as our annual creative writing competitions, and we encourage students to take part in prestigious national and international competitions.

Competitions to enter right now

If you like the sound of any of these, want to enter, but feel as if you need a little bit of help getting started, just speak to your English teacher. They’ll be happy to help.

National and international competitions

BBC Young Writer’s Award 2026: This is the most prestigious award for young writers in the UK.  Entrants aged between 14 and 18 have to submit a short story of a 1,000 words or less.  The deadline for receipt of entries is 23rd March 2026.  More details here.‍ ‍

Author of Tomorrow Award: The Author of Tomorrow Award is designed to find the adventure writers of the future. It is an annual competition open to young people across the world who have completed a short piece of adventure writing in English. Prizes are from £100 to £1000.  It closes on 19th April 2026.  More details here.

Clubs and competitions in school

Enter one of our annual creative writing competitions

We run a number of competitions throughout the year, every year. If you happen to win, you will receive Bonus Levels to your overall English Level, plus one of our legendary trophies. The regular competitions are:

  • The Cursed Pen – our annual horror writing competition

  • The Green Dagger – our annual crime writing competition

  • The SHSG Poetry Prize – our annual poetry competition

Join our Debating Society

Students in Years 7-10 will be able to learn the skills of debating, practise debates for fun and take part in internal and external debate competitions.

Join our Creative Writing Group

Our creative writing group (for students in KS3 and 4) meets every week to practise and share their work.

Join the GCSE Bookclub

Students in Year 10 will be able to join our Bookclub (from January), in which they’ll read some brilliant super-curricular books and talk about them. The Bookclub will continue to run for Year 11 students until Christmas.