A SCHOOLGIRL has made it to the next stage in the world's largest postage design competition.
A pupil at Dorchester Middle School, Rohana Stentiford, aged 12, has made it to the regional finalist stage of the Heroes Stamp Design Competition.
The competition saw 7,479 schools across the UK take part and a total of 606,049 children enter with their own designs, making it a Guiness World Records title holder for the largest stamp design competition.
Rohana is one of 120 children to have made it to the regional finalist stage of the competition in the south west with her stamp design inspired by Professor Chris Whitty and his famous slide shows which have taken place during a number of press briefings throughout the pandemic.
To arrive at the 120 regional finalists, a network of judges, consisting of current and retired art teachers, evaluated each of the 606,049 entries. Over a three-month period, the best entries, from Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the nine regions of England were chosen from each age group.
From these 120 regional finalists, a special panel of judges will determine the winning 24 regional designs and these will be announced in November.
From these 24 entries, eight winning images will be chosen as official Royal Mail stamps. They will then appear on millions of items of mail across the UK when they are issued in the Spring of 2022.
A spokesman for Dorchester Middle School said: "In May, faculty lead Mrs Gowers and the DMS Art and Design Department promoted the Royal Mail Stamp Design competition as a whole school extra-curricular art and design opportunity to all year groups. Over 100 entries were received then sent in from pupils in year 5, 6 , 7 and 8.
"Pupils were tasked with creating a colourful stamp design ‘honouring the heroes of the coronavirus pandemic’. Rohana reached the long list in July beating over 600,000 entries worldwide.
"We are so proud to hear that she has now been named a finalist in the world’s largest postage stamp competition with her lifelike art work portraying Chris Whitty."
Royal Mail started the competition as a way of honouring the everyday heroes during the pandemic, including key workers and frontline workers.
The winning stamps will feature designs created by eight school-aged children. Royal Mail asked young designers to think about who their hero or heroes are, and to then design a stamp in their honour and the final eight stamps will be sent to Her Majesty The Queen before they can be printed and issued.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “It is of great credit to the children of this country that in world record breaking numbers they picked up their paintbrushes, pens and paints and paid artistic tribute to the heroes of our coronavirus response. Their brilliant efforts represent the collective gratitude of the nation to everyone who went above and beyond during the pandemic.
"Congratulations to all those who have made it to the next round and thank you to everyone who has taken part.”
Only five times in the company’s 500-year history have children designed official Royal Mail stamps: 1966; 1981; 1992; 2013; and 2017.
The winners will follow in the footsteps of highly acclaimed children’s illustrators who have designed stamps in the past, such as: Quentin Blake; Nick Park; and Axel Scheffler.
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