AN eight-year-old from Altrincham has been named a runner up in a national young writers’ competition.

Kai Paydon from North Cheshire Jewish School, fought off tough competition from children all over the region to come second in Explore Learning’s National Young Writers’ Award, with his story, ‘The Magic Stick’.

The competition, now in its sixth year, was judged by award winning illustrator and author, Liz Pichon, of the Tom Gates series of books.

This year’s task was to write a 500-word story with the theme ‘fairytales and fables’.

Liz says: “All the finalists’ stories were fantastic.

"I was so impressed at the incredibly high standard of writing.

"There were some amazing, creative, interesting and funny tales.

"It made picking a winner very hard, well done to everyone who took part.”

Since the competition launched, hundreds of thousands of children all over the country have taken part, 'overwhelming' the team at Explore Learning with their imaginative tales and creative stories.

The company provides English and maths tuition to children aged five to 14 and run workshops all over the country which aim to make learning fun.

Carey Ann Dodah, head of curriculum at Explore Learning said: “We have been thrilled with the quality of entrants we have received this year and the runners up have done brilliantly well to make it through to the short list.

"We recently found that a massive three quarters of parents in the UK say their children either never write stories or only do so when tasked by their teachers which is just terrible.

"The aim of the National Young Writers’ Award is to encourage children to pick up pen and paper and not be afraid of giving writing a try so a big well done to all our young writers.”

Explore Learning has 93 centres across the UK, with more than 24,500 children attending each year.

T find out more, visit Altrincham's Explore Learning centre on Lloyd Street or call 0161 241 0006 to book a free trial session.