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Two North Wales students are celebrating after beating off thousands of entries to be chosen by Prince Charles as the winners of a Royal Mail design competition.
The students, from Flint High School, have won a national competition that will see their designs made into a special set of stamps set to go on sale in a couple of weeks’ time.
Year 8 pupil Shachow Ali, and Jessica Roberts, from Year 11, are two of the winners of The Heroes Stamp Design Competition, honouring those who went above and beyond to help others during the pandemic.
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Their striking designs were shortlisted to the top 24 out of 120 regional finalists and were selected out of an astonishing 606,049 entries from 7,479 schools across the UK.
The amazing number of entries helped secure a Guinness World Records title for the largest postage stamp design competition.
Prince Charles chose the final eight designs and the Flintshire students were among the winners.
(Image: Carolyn Poole)
As well as the incredible achievement of having their design made into an official Royal Mail stamp, Shachow and Jessica have won £1,000 each and £2,000 for their school.
Claire Evans, head of year 11 and art, said: “Our huge congratulations go to Shachow and Jessica for winning this competition, this is a truly fantastic accomplishment. They are both such talented artists and their designs are outstanding in their artistic skill and in their reflection of the brief.”
“It is an incredible achievement for our school to have two winners in this prestigious competition which generated such a massive number of entries.”
Shachow’, whose design is a drawing of Captain Tom, said: “I was very surprised to be selected as one of the winners, I never expected it. My family are very excited and happy for me. It has been a great experience to be involved in the competition.”
(Image: Carolyn Poole)
Jessica’s design illustrates health workers from around the world who have worked so hard to save lives during the pandemic.
She said: “I was also thrilled to be selected as a winner; it was totally unexpected. Knowing that my design and Shachow’s will appear on stamps is amazing, it hasn’t really sunk in yet.
“My family are so pleased, and I would like to thank the school for giving us the opportunity and support to enter the competition.”
Clare Millington, acting headteacher, said: “This is a phenomenal achievement, and we are all so proud of Shachow and Jessica.
“After such a challenging couple of years, this happy news is a fantastic boost for the whole school, the local community, Flintshire and, indeed, for Wales.
“We are so excited to see the printed stamps and we look forward to celebrating Shachow and Jessica’s success.”
Over the coming weeks each winner will have a special dedicated postmark that will celebrate their achievement.
The postmark will be applied to stamped mail delivered to addresses nationwide.
Who was your pandemic hero? Let us know in the comments section below.
