The Mayor of Yate was in attendance at the town’s Heritage Centre last week to reward winners of a recent poetry competition.

The Rotary Club of Yate spearheaded the competition that was sponsored by the Arts Society Severn Valley and it saw students from a number of different schools across the area compete against one another for prizes.

All together, seven schools from across Yate participated, with Abbotswood Primary, St Mary’s Primary, North Road Primary, Rangeworthy Primary, Iron Acton Primary, Yate Academy and Brimsham Gren School all submitting work.

The competition saw each student base their work on the word ‘white’.

Yate Rotary Club sponsored prizes that were awarded to four different age groups.

These groups were years 1/2, years 3/4, years 5/6 and the finally years 7/8.

Rotarian Linda Griffith arranged the competition and presented the awards to the children with Mayor John Ford.

Linda was pleased with the competition, she said: “It was a brilliant showcase for the talented children.

“It was lovely they could come with their parents to collect their prizes at the heritage centre, I think there were some very happy winners.

“The poems we received were so impressive, creative and philosophical it was really hard to choose.

“We were deciding for quite a while, in one of the categories we just had to give it to two.”

Mayor John Ford echoed Linda’s words.

“It’s been a fantastic occasion, I am absolutely stunned that children so young can produce work with incredible maturity beyond their years,” he said.

There were three different prizes for the children.

The winners of each age group received £50 cash each from the Rotary Club.

The runners-up each received £30 and then the children who were in the highly-commended group each were given £20.

No decision on next year's competition has been made, however Linda expressed her hope that it would.