A seven-year-old outshone competitors from all over the country to take second place in a writing competition.

When Elizabeth Osibogun, of Edmonton, handed in her 500-word story The Witch and the Princess at Welbourne Primary, in Stainby Road, Tottenham, she had no idea how far it would take her.

She said: "I love writing and when the competition came up at school I wanted to write about a princess so I went for it."

After winning at her school, Elizabeth was then named runner-up in the Explore Learning’s National Young Writers’ Award, much the delight and surprise of her mother, Olayemi.

She said: “I had no idea what was happening, she just came home one day from school and told me that she had won a prize at school for her writing; I was so shocked.

“We are very proud of her and the work she did to get the award.”

Now in its sixth year, the competition had a ‘fairy tales and fables’ theme and was judged by illustrator and author, Liz Pichon.

She said: “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.”

After getting a taste of story writing, Elizabeth added: “I would like to write more poems now. Writing makes me feel really happy.”

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.”