A GREAT Sankey High School student has topped thousands of entries to be shortlisted in the Brit Writers’ Awards under 16 poetry category.

Year nine pupil Zoe Mairs submitted four poems Trust, Rainforest, Autumn and Bullied to the competition and will now attend a glitzy awards ceremony in London.

The 13-year-old, from Westbrook, said: “I was really excited and shocked as I didn’t think it would be me but one of my friends that had entered instead.

“I wrote a list of ideas for the competition and they were the four I liked.

“There’s quite a deep message running through them.”

It is the secoind time the school writing club has discovered a talented writer in as many years.

Zoe follows in the footsteps of fellow member Rebecca Mannion, who made it through to the final last year.

The red carpet ceremony on October 7 will be filmed by Sky TV cameras at the London Aquarium where Zoe will rub shoulders with writing celebrities and dignitaries.

Proud parents Paul and Sandra Mairs, both aged 52, said they were looking forward to the trip to the capital.

Sandra said: “She has always liked writing stories from a young age but she always told us they weren’t very good and didn’t want us to read them.

“She has come on leaps and bounds since she started the writing club.

“She says she won’t win it but it’s such an amazing achievement to get to the final it doesn’t matter if she does or not.”