English Competition Winners

Betty Behan, Gwen Cockell and Sienna Weir Memorial Prize winners

At the end of 2025, students from Years 7 – 10 entered work into the Betty Behan and Gwen Cockell English prizes. A group of students in Years 6 and 7 also participated in the Sienna Weir Poetry Workshops and subsequently submitted work to the Sienna Weir Memorial Prize. These prizes recognise exemplary creative writing in the Short Fiction and poetry forms. We were delighted to announce the winners of these competitions on Speech Night.

We received an excellent standard of entries this year and shortlisted a number of students who were all interviewed before selecting the final winners and Highly Commended pieces. During the interviews it was so exciting to hear about the passion for writing amongst so many of our students and to learn more about the inspiration for their pieces of work. It is such a privilege to work in a community of enthusiastic writers – the English department encourages our students to keep up their excellent efforts!

We would like to congratulate the prize winners again and to announce the Highly Commended works:

Betty Behan Short Fiction Prize (Junior)

Betty Behan Senior Short Fiction Prize (Senior)

Gwen Cockell Prize for Creative Writing

Sienna Weir Memorial Prize for Poetry

Students can access and read the winning pieces through Cognito.

Jenny Bean
Head of English