Registration for volunteer judges is now closed - thank you to all those who have signed up to read and mark stories for this year. Round 1 of judging is currently underway and updates will be sent to submitters on their progress in mid-December.
Each volunteer judge that has read and submitted their marks will be entered into a random draw and one lucky judge will be invited to attend the star-studded grand final in February next year.
During the 2024/25 competition, we received almost 44,000 stories - tales to make you laugh, cry or gasp in amazement. Why not take a look at some of the brilliant tales that made it through to the final 50?
For more information, please read the 'Volunteer Judges' section in our Frequently Asked Questions.
Everything you need to know
Our judges have always loved the experience – watch school librarian Sharon Corbally's video on everything you need to know about being a volunteer judge.
You will need to provide the name of a referee, who can verify that you are able to mark the work of 5-11 year-olds. Please let them know to expect an email from us once you have completed your application.
Who can validate my application?
Each volunteer judge will need to be validated before they are sent any stories. This can be from a Head Teacher, Deputy, or Head of Department. If you are on a career-break, please use your last employer or someone deemed qualified to vouch for you.
We require validation to ensure that collectively, our volunteer judges have the experience of assessing the written work of children aged 11 and under.
When will I receive my stories to mark?
The first round of judging for 500 Words 2025/26 will take place once the competition has closed to entries, on Friday 7 November until Wednesday 10 December. Volunteer judges will receive their first stories on Monday 10 November 2025.
Volunteer judges will receive a batch of ten randomly allocated (anonymised) stories. You will have a month to read and mark them, as the volunteer judging round ends. There may be times when there are not enough stories to allocate to a judge within a particular age category. We are often over-subscribed for judges at the 5-7 age group - so if you're able to mark 8-11, please sign up to do so.
How many stories will I receive?
The stories won't be longer than one side of A4. We make sure our judges don’t receive stories from their own local area, so there is no chance of accidentally being allocated a story from your child or class. You can be a judge and still submit children’s stories from your school.
You can request to mark more than 10 stories if you wish.
Stories will be judged on the following criteria:
- Characterisation
- Plot
- Originality
- Language
- Enjoyment
What if I have concerns?
If you are concerned about any harmful content in a story, or the welfare of a child, or a story has been plagiarised, then you can flag the story to us on the 500 Words' volunteer judging portal. The 500 Words team has a process in place for each story that is flagged.
I've ran out of time to mark stories
If you don't think you have time to mark 10 stories, that's okay! You can hand back stories on the portal and we will redistribute to other volunteer judges.
Become a volunteer judge
I really think you should get involved and become a judge because you'll enjoy the whole process. Some of the stories will absolutely blow you away with their ingenuity and their imagination. It will give you an idea of what's going on in children's lives and imaginations and where their inspiration is coming from.Managing the workload of marking the 500 word stories alongside my job was really easy, partly because the website was so easy to use - once you've done it once it was a really quick process but also because you got so hooked into the stories. Some of them were funny, some of them were scary, and it was an absolute joy to mark them. As there are only 500 words long it doesn't take too long to get through a whole story. The deadline was really long. We got weeks and weeks to mark 20 stories.
So some of the stories would be fantastical ,some really funny some of the stories you could see so perhaps they'd been impacted by something in the news. Reading so many diverse stories from children is actually an honour because you get to see an insight into either their daily life, or their imagination, or the things they are thinking about at the time.First of all definitely do it sign up for it because it's a very straightforward, quick process. Enjoy reading the stories, don't overthink the marking like you would when you're at work but rather enjoy reading the stories and then just use the criteria to give a general idea of how you feel. And also use it to inspire the children that you perhaps work with. And also when it comes to the announcements of the winners there's a chance that one of the stories that you judged might be picked as the winner.
I will definitely be joining the judging this year, you couldn't keep me away from it.
Need more inspiration?
Back to 500 Words
Click here for more information on 500 Words.
500 Words' marking criteria
Find out what the marking criteria is to help inspire children when they write their stories.
What are the 500 Words prizes?
There are many prizes to be handed out to the gold, silver and bronze recipients.
