An 11-year-old has wowed judges with her literary skill after winning a national poetry competition.

Ella Smith, from Rayleigh, entered the Premier League’s Writing Stars Poetry Competition at the end of last year.

A keen writer, Ella has a fondness for writing short stories.

However, she has never written a poem before so it came as a shock to Ella when she found out she was the winner in her category for the East of England region.

Ella said: “I feel very excited and overwhelmed.

“I never realised I would get to this stage, it’s the first time I have written a poem.”

The competition, run by the football Premier League, was split into two categories, Year 1 and 2 pupils, and Year 3 to 6 pupils.

The theme was ‘Resilience’ and pupils were expected to write inspirational poems about persevering to achieve your goals.

Ella’s winning piece, titled “Believe and Achieve”, had four verses tackling the struggles of attempting to achieve a result that seems so distant.

Each verse ended with the phrase “Believe and Achieve” as a method of motivating the reader.

The Edward Francis Primary School pupil put her literary influence down to her teacher, catherine Benson.

Proud of her daughter’s achievement was mum Jo Smith.

Mrs Smith: “I am very proud of her. She has always been writing since she was little.

“However, it’s the first time that she has written a poem so we were shocked and surprised when we found out that she had won.”

Ella has been given her poem in a frame and will attend the awards ceremony with the 19 other winners from regions across the country.

She will also receive a Premier League football kit and her poem will feature in an illustrated book of Premier League Writing Stars poems

This win is just the beginning for Ella, who has aspirations to write for a living when she grows up.

Her mum continued: “She will continue to be a writer and she wants to be an author when she is older.”

The competition was judged by a high-profile panel.

Included on the panel was Children’s Laureate and writer of the Charlie and Lola books Lauren Child, Everton star Yannick Bolasie and the Young People’s Laureate for London, Caleb Femi.

Head judge was Jonathan Douglas from the National Literacy Trust.

The final judge is former England midfielder Frank Lampard, who has become a children’s author since hanging up his boots in 2016.

Poems were strictly capped at 20 lines and 150 words.

Ten awards for each categories from the different regions were handed out to the winning pupils, from thousands of entries.