Guardian Reopens Young Country Diary for Children Aged 8 to 14

The deadline is noon on Monday 2 November, according to the paper. Entries should run 200 to 250 words and describe what the child saw and what happened, whether that was a hedge full of berries, a beetle on the move or a nervous deer.

Submissions go through a form that a parent or guardian must fill in rather than the child. The Guardian said one of its journalists will contact the parent or guardian before publication, and that children whose work is published are paid, with the payment made to the adult on the child's behalf.

Four entries will be selected, two to be published in October and two in November. Pieces submitted before 15 October stand a chance of appearing in October, the paper said. The form will close after the autumn deadline and reopen on 1 January for winter submissions, after a break in December.

The series is open to children who are not nature experts, and the Guardian said it was particularly keen to reach teachers who might take a class outside to notice nature. Recent diaries cited as examples include Aled, 8, on his afternoon of crabbing; Jess, 10, on the jellyfish party; and Henry, 14, on a weary wheatear.

Photographs and drawings are welcome but are not a condition of entry. The Guardian said there is no way to attach them to the submission form, so they should be flagged in the "more information" field, and that landscape images are more useful than portrait ones. It said the form is encrypted and that only the Guardian has access to contributions.

On the use of artificial intelligence, the paper asked that every sentence be written by the child rather than by large language models such as ChatGPT or Claude. LLMs may be used for research, planning or checking, it said, but their output should be used with caution and double-checked.