Bedrock Young Authors Terms and Conditions

About

This page was updated on 08 November 2023

The competition is organised by Bedrock Learning.

Eligibility

Entry to this competition is open to persons who will be aged between 6 and 16 years on Friday 12 January 2024 when the competition closes.

Entries must be submitted by an adult (parent/guardian or teacher) on behalf of the child. When an entry is submitted by a third party (e.g. a teacher), prior to submitting the entry, on behalf of an entrant, the party submitting the entry shall be responsible for (i) obtaining parental consent (ii) providing a copy of the Rules to the parent/guardian to ensure the entrant’s compliance with the Rules. Evidence may be requested for consent, proof of age, identity and eligibility.

Entry will be in six categories:

• Category 1 - KS2 Fiction - ages 6-11 years
• Category 2 - KS2 Non-fiction - ages 6-11 years
• Category 3 - KS3 Fiction - ages 11-14 years
• Category 4 - KS3 Non-fiction - ages 11-14 years
• Category 5 - KS4 Fiction - ages 14-16 years
• Category 6 - KS4 Non-fiction - ages 14-16 years

How to enter

Entrants must write a short story (no more than 200 words in length). Entry is via an online entry form available at ……. The responsible adult submitting the story on behalf of the entrant will be asked to provide the entrant’s name, age, school and ensure that they have parental permission to do so. The submitter must enter the child’s story in the text box provided for submission.

All stories must be submitted in English.

We can only accept stories which are 200 words or fewer. Please make sure you check the word count.

Entries can only be accepted online; postal entries or entries sent over email will not be read or considered.

The adult submitting the entrant’s story will be required to approve the entry and agree to these rules (including Bedrock Learning's use of the story submitted and the fictional nature of the story) on behalf of the entrant, by way of submitting their story. The adult may be the child’s parent, guardian or teacher. The adult must provide their own contact and personal details (not the child’s). Teachers submitting stories on behalf of pupils must seek parental permission and if requested by Bedrock Learning, provide evidence of permission in the event of an enquiry or complaint. For the winning entries, if permission to enter was given by a teacher, Bedrock Learning will contact the teacher and ask for confirmation of permission from the entrant’s parent or guardian.

Entry opens on Wednesday 1 November 2023 and closes on Friday 12 January 2024. Submissions received outside of this time frame will not be considered. Bedrock Learning advises users not to wait until the last minute to submit entries. Bedrock Learning cannot be held to account if the website runs slowly or for any technical failure or malfunction during the submission window.

If users have emailed the administrators and are awaiting a response, the competition deadline still stands. Unless the competition administrators have explicitly instructed otherwise, all stories must be submitted before the deadline in order to be considered in the competition.

Entrants can only enter individually. Each person can enter multiple times, however entries must be submitted through individual entry forms and the stories must be wholly written by the entrant only; stories cannot be written by more than one person. If more than one entry is submitted in the same entry form, only the entrant's first story will be considered.

Entries must be an original piece of prose. Stories can feature well known public figures from the present day or from history, take place in historical eras (e.g. the English Civil War), or use real-life experiences as inspiration.

The entrant’s parent, guardian or teacher warrants that they have not used material or depicted events that actually took place or used the personal details of any living persons in the story. As winning stories will be published within the Bedrock Learning platform, it is important that entrants do not include any personal details about themselves. The entrant must not include their name in the title or body of the story; entries which do contain this information may be removed from the competition.

Entries cannot be returned so please remember to retain a copy. Unsuccessful entrants will not be contacted in respect of their entry and no feedback on any entry will be provided.

All entries must be the original work of the entrant and must not infringe the rights of any other party. In addition, the use of generative AI tools to create any part of an entry is not permitted and will lead to disqualification.

Bedrock Learning accepts no responsibility if entrants ignore these rules and the entrant’s parent, guardian or teacher agrees to indemnify Bedrock Learning against any claim by any third party from any breach of these rules.

Entries must not contain defamatory, obscene, offensive, or any other unsuitable material; Bedrock Learning reserves the right to disqualify entries containing such matter. Entries must be suitable to be broadcast, published on the Bedrock Learning platform or used online by Bedrock Learning for audiences of all ages, but in particular for a child audience. If the story has troubling content Bedrock Learning may if required take advice from the NSPCC, and may refer the Troubling Content to the relevant authorities.

Entrants retain the copyright in their entries but their parent or guardian grants to Bedrock Learning a perpetual non-exclusive royalty-free licence to publish to the Bedrock Learning platform, broadcast (across all media) and post the entry online and on any other platforms yet to be envisaged. This licence will be deemed to include all the necessary rights and permissions to enable such use by Bedrock Learning, to fulfil the prizes and to complete the administration of this competition.

By submitting a story, the entrant’s parent or guardian agrees that Bedrock Learning may at its sole discretion edit, adapt, abridge or translate the entry for the purposes listed above.

Entrants agree that Bedrock Learning may publish the stories on their website, the Bedrock Learning platform and social media accounts.

In the event that the entry is published online at bedrocklearning.org or on social media, for the avoidance of doubt, this will not be part of, or influence in any way, the judging process. Only the story title, entrant’s name, age and school name will be published with an entry.

Judging criteria

Entries will be judged on the following criteria:

• Originality
• Plot
• Characterisation
• Language
• Enjoyment

Entries will be judged by the Teaching and Learning team at Bedrock Learning, made up of former teachers. Each judge will receive a batch of anonymised stories from entrants located in a different area of the UK, to read and score using the criteria above.

Prizes will be awarded to the three finalists in each category: the six gold winners will win a version of their story being published on the Bedrock Learning platform within the Library*, a £250 book voucher for their school and a Bedrock goodie bag. The six silver winners will win a £100 book voucher for their school and a Bedrock goodie bag.

*Please note, as the content in our digital library is designed to include challenging language and stories that are suitable for all learners we may be required to edit Young Authors stories that are featured.

Unsuccessful entrants will not be notified. If the selected entrant is home schooled, they will only receive their story being featured in the Bedrock Learning Library and their goodie bag.

General

Bedrock Learning’s decision on the six finalists is final. No correspondence will be entered into.

Bedrock Learning reserves the right to disqualify any entry which breaches any of these rules, brings Bedrock Learning into disrepute or to withhold a prize if, in its opinion, entries do not reach the required standard.

Bedrock Learning reserves the right to (i) amend these rules or cancel this competition at any stage, if deemed necessary in its opinion, or if circumstances arise outside of its control, (ii) disqualify any entrant or winner who breaches these rules, has acted fraudulently in any way or brings Bedrock Learning into disrepute (in its sole discretion);

Bedrock Learning cannot accept any responsibility whatsoever for any technical failure or malfunction or any other problem with any server, Internet access, system or otherwise which may result in any entry being lost or not properly registered or recorded. Proof of sending is not proof of receipt.

The parent/guardian of an entrant is deemed to have accepted these rules when giving permission to the entry of the relevant entrant.

If any of these clauses should be determined to be illegal, invalid, or otherwise unenforceable then it shall be severed and deleted from these rules and the remaining clauses shall survive, remain in full force and effect.

Bedrock Learning reserves the right to terminate and revoke the prize if these rules and Bedrock Learning safeguarding policy are not adhered to.

The competition is run by Bedrock Learning. These rules are governed by the laws of England and Wales.