The competition encourages pupils from primary, special and secondary schools to create pieces of writing and art to deliver messages of equality and cultural diversity.
It is run by the NASUWT and is supported by a range of organisations, including the Anne Frank Trust UK and SecEd.
The competition is an opportunity to discuss and explore diversity and community cohesion with students, using art and creative writing. It has been running now for more than 10 years and during this time students have been creative in the media they have used – including poems, stories, digital artwork, photography and collages.
Teachers have incorporated the competition into lessons across the curriculum, including history, humanities, literacy, art and citizenship, as well as school projects.
For 2018, NASUWT would like students to explore themes of diversity, race, equality and identity. Entries are particularly encouraged to mark the 70th anniversary this year of the arrival of the SS Empire Windrush generation – migrant workers who made a significant contribution to our health and other public services and to the manufacturing industries.
Students can enter across a number of categories, including general creative writing category, The Anne Frank Poetry Award for poems inspired by the life and writing of Anne Frank, the art category, and new for 2018, the Think Global Diversity Today Award, an award that will acknowledge submissions that inspire “a cohesive and united society within Britain”.
Prizes will be awarded to the best entries from across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales in primary, secondary and special school categories. Television presenter Gok Wan will choose the overall winner.
In the secondary school category last year, the winners were the students of Class S3 from Inverclyde Academy for The Diversity Rug – hundreds of individual strips of fabric printed with powerful words and messages about diversity bound together to create a striking “rug” three-feet long (pictured).
The closing date for entries is July 10, 2018, and the final ceremony will take place in London on October 11.