Our story competition winners

9th May 2017

Last week, we celebrated #ChildrenBooksWeek. As a part of it, Celtic students could enter our story competition. It was great to see many of them submitting their stories for the chance to win some brilliant prizes (Celtic bags, WhSmith voulcers, chocolate, postcards and badges)

We would like to congratulate our story competition winners and share their great stories with you.

It was very challenging to choose the winners as we were really impressed by all the entries and the imagination that our students had.

Here are the winning stories:

The Magic Farm by Ammar 

Once upon a time, there were three little sheep. They were living alone in a big farm called the Magic Farm. The Magic Farm was the safest farm in the world and they could get whatever they wanted. Then one day, the three little sheep were eating their lunch inside the house, suddenly they heard a loud voice coming from the front door.

One of the sheep sacrificed himself to check out what was happening. When the sheep opened the door, he was shocked when he saw a wolf that was walking around the house as if he was trying to get inside. The wolf didn’t recognise this farm as the Magic Farm.

The sheep who sacrificed himself called his brothers to come and have a look at the wolf. They started giggling at the wolf. The wolf said, “What is wrong with you three silly little sheep? Keep laughing because I’m going to eat you!” The sheep replied, “You can’t eat us Mr Wolfy because we have a magical farm and it can help us.” The three little sheep started to say the magic word, “Abracadabra!” Finally, the wolf became friendly and they all lived together and had a happy life.

Coral and the Merman by Mika 

In a faraway kingdom, there was a girl whose mother used to be a mermaid. Yet, her mother had gained legs and had got married to the handsome and kind king of the island. The girl, named Coral, liked to swim in the sea. She went there every day.

One day, Coral was swimming as usual when a huge wave came and dragged her under the currents. She swam for her life…swimming, swimming, swimming…..but she was so exhausted that she thought she was going to die. Whilst she was trying to escape the massive wave, a merman was taking a stroll along the seabed. He saw the drowning girl so he took her to the shore. After a while, she recovered consciousness. He fell in love with her at first sight, as soon as he saw her eyes. He thought, “What attractive eyes she has!” However, as she came to the merman went back to the sea because he didn’t want her to see his fins. In the kingdom under the sea, it was disdainful for fins to be seen by humans. However, she had seen his fins and remembered his face. He was really handsome and wore a pendant with a red stone. She had also fallen in love with him at first sight.

From that day, Coral went to the sea not just to swim but also to think of him. She longed to meet him again and wanted to express her gratitude to him for saving her. She went to the shore where she had seen him every day and stayed there all day long.

Then one day, Coral found a dolphin that was washed up on that shore. He looked like he was dying so she did her best to save him. She poured water over the dolphin, over and over again for a long time. Then, finally he recovered. The dolphin said, “Thank you so much, girl. I’ll take you under the sea in return for saving my life!” He cast a spell on her so she would be able to breathe in the sea. She asked him, “Do you know the handsome merman who wears a pendant with a red stone?” He replied, “Yes! I know him; he is the King of this ocean!” And then he took her to the kingdom.

Surprisingly, the dolphin was a servant of the King. As soon as the King saw her, he recognised that she was the girl who he had sought for a long time. She had beautiful and lovely eyes. At first, he expressed his gratitude to her for saving the dolphin. “Thank you so much for saving him. He is an excellent servant of mine. I can’t live without him.” Coral said, “You’re welcome, and……..thank you for saving me that time.” The King responded, with a red face, “And I can’t live without you either. Will you marry me?” She quickly answered, “Yes, yes, yes!” She was really pleased and couldn’t express her happiness. Then they got married and lived peacefully ever after.   

The Magic Coin by Jose Ricardo 

Once upon a time, in a small town, a boy called Paul lived with his parents. Paul was 12 years old and he had many friends, who studied with him at the school near his home. Paul had a tiny problem: he liked to play tricks. He always did this his friends and his family. They weren’t very happy with him because of this and they didn’t believe in the things that Paul said.

One day, Paul was playing alone in the street when an old lady appeared. He didn’t know the old lady but decided to play a trick on her. As she was passing him, he pretended to look frightened and began to shout, “Look, look, a big dog is running towards us!” And he ran quickly away. The old lady was very afraid but she couldn’t run. She started screaming for help and dropped her things that she was carrying.

Paul came back and began to laugh; he said “Sorry, there isn’t a dog. I just wanted to play a trick on you. It was very funny to see you screaming.”

The old lady was very angry with Paul, but did nothing, instead she said “All right, you got me, it was really funny, but please help me. Could you get my things? I’ll give you a coin.”

Paul couldn’t believe it, he scared her yet he was going to earn some money. Quickly Paul picked the things off the ground and gave them to her. The old lady smiled and took a coin out of her pocket, saying “Here is your prize, this coin. Give me your hand.” Paul held out his hand. The old lady put the coin in the palm of Paul’s hand and said: “When you learn the lesson, you can use this coin.” She repeated the same phrase three times.

Paul thought to himself, “what lesson? She isn’t my teacher.” He closed his hand and ran home. What Paul didn’t know was that the old lady was a witch! She never did bad things to anyone but she thought that Paul needed to learn that people shouldn’t play tricks and she so she had given him the magic coin. This coin didn’t let the person tell lies but it couldn’t be seen by other people, only the person holding it. Another magical quality of this coin was that it was stuck in the palm until the person had learnt their lesson. The old lady watched him and a small smile spread across her face. She knew what would happen to him now.

Paul arrived home, but he didn’t want to tell his mother what had happened because she advised him that if he played a trick on someone, he would be punished for a long time.

“Hello Paul. How are you?” she asked. Paul was going to say that nothing special had happened, but he started stuttering and then revealed all that had happened with the old lady. He showed his mother his hand with the coin in his palm. Paul’s mother was very annoyed at hearing this story, even more so when he had said he had a coin in his hand because she couldn’t see anything.

“Paul you are telling lies! Two lies! Your punishment will be twice as harsh. You’ll go two months without playing with your friends, without watching TV and you’ll study alone in your bedroom, starting now!”

He was very sad about this and went to his bedroom. He sat on his bed and wondered why he replied the truth? How his mother couldn’t see the coin? And why he couldn’t get it off his hand? Then he remembered what the old lady had told him. When you learn the lesson, you can use this coin. So that was it, Paul thought, the coin has some kind of spell and now he felt quite troubled. He began to think that tricks weren’t so funny because the old lady had played a trick on him. A few hours passed and he understood how people felt after one of his tricks. So, he decided that he wouldn’t do it ever again. As he made the decision, at the same time the coin dropped on the ground. As the old lady had foreseen, he had learned his lesson and now he could use the coin, but after two months of course!

Thank you so much to all the people who joined the competition!