As 2025 comes to a close, we are delighted to share the Hearts and Minds ebook from the Association for Language Learning North East’s writing competition for European Day of Languages. The competition was open to schools across the country, as part of the Europe-wide celebration of languages in September. Entries were received from children and young people in a wide range of languages spoken in Europe, Asia and Africa.
Examples of children’s writing in the ebook, including from Newcastle schools – Benfield School, Jesmond Park Academy and RGS
This year’s EDoL writing competition shared its theme with the Europe-wide Day of Languages: ‘Languages open hearts and minds’. We asked language learners to focus on the words ‘hearts’ and ‘minds’.
We received entries in the largest ever range of languages, and thank our friends at Newcastle Languages Resource Centre for reading and commenting on those we didn’t have capacity to deal with! We also received a high number of interesting entries showing knowledge of more than one language.
24 prizes were awarded to learners across all age-groups. The judges asked for a large number of commendations this year including: schools entering for the first time, schools which sent entries in very diverse languages, celebrating their learners’ talents.
To all the schools which entered, judges felt they sensed the importance of offering this opportunity to their learners in spite of all the other pressures on them – and to individual pupils commended for their creative thoughtful, personal, witty and well-presented thoughts on the theme.
Steven Fawkes, European Day of Languages Competition Volunteer and Co-Chair of the Association for Language Learning
Children and young people’s creativity and passion for languages is shown through these entries. International Newcastle supported the competition through promotion and offering one of the prizes for schools. We are delighted to see Newcastle schools featuring in the ebook this year and to see the wealth of talent on show from across the country. We hope more schools will also take the opportunity to get involved in Express Yourself: North East Festival of Languages, where children can express themselves in different languages through creative writing, poetry, singing and much more.
Declan Baharini, Chief Executive Officer of International Newcastle and Coordinator of Express Yourself: North East Festival of Languages