Inspired by the Essex Book Awards, Moulsham High School students organised their own writing competition based on the increasingly popular idea of fanfiction.

Fanfiction is the writing of fiction stories based on the books that the fans love.

Moulsham's recent winner was Year 7 student May English who based her winning entry on the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling (www.moulshamhigh.org/uploads/asset_file/3_0_winner-of-fanfiction-competition.pdf ), and second place was awarded to Year 9 student, Maria Najlah, who wrote a story based on the hit Disney movie Frozen.

The competition was judged by the students in Year 10 who took part in this year’s Essex Book Awards.

Librarian, Neva Hales, said: “We had entries featuring aliens, spaceships and Spiderman and even a fanfiction based on the hugely popular teen book The Fault in our Stars.

"The entries definitely demonstrated how creative our students can be.”

The school was delighted that the efforts of the students were recognised at the Essex Book Awards ceremony last month.

As part of their involvement in this exciting project, around 200 students entered a competition to design bookmarks and the 12 winning designs went into print and are available from the school library – bookmarks by students for students are always really popular in the school library.

Librarian, Lynne Wheater, said: “Our library competitions are part of a wide ranging enrichment programme and the series of House competitions organised throughout the year.

"We have been delighted with the fabulous designs and the creativity shown by students – our next challenge will ask students to design a new cover for the reading record booklets used by Years 7 and 8 and the winning design will be used by students next year!”