Burnley schoolgirl's award winning Christmas card will be on display in Downing Street

The Prime Minister will be opening a Christmas card designed by a Burnley schoolgirl.
MP Julie Cooper with Grace Huang (seven) the winner of her Christmas card competition.MP Julie Cooper with Grace Huang (seven) the winner of her Christmas card competition.
MP Julie Cooper with Grace Huang (seven) the winner of her Christmas card competition.

The card, designed by seven-year-old Grace Huang, was chosen from hundreds of entries for a competition run by Burnley and Padiham MP Julie Cooper.

At the end of October Mrs Cooper invited all the primary school children in Burnley and Padiham to take part in a competition to design her Parliamentary Christmas card.

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A panel of judges, which included Simon Figg, the manager of Burnley Royal Mail sorting office and Andrew White, manager of Burnley's Reel Cinema, had the tricky task of selecting a winner for the card that will be sent out to PM Theresa May and also Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn.

They eventually chose the design created by Grace, who won a selection of goodies for herself, a gift voucher and £100 book token for her school, St Augustine's RC Primary .

Mrs Cooper went along to the school in Lowerhouse Lane for the surprise presentation to Grace in front of all her classmates and her proud mum.

Mrs Cooper said: “The MP’s Parliamentary Card competition is a long standing tradition in Westminster and one which I look forward to each year.

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"It’s a fantastic opportunity to showcase the many talents of the young children of Burnley and Padiham. We were overwhelmed by both the quantity and quality of the entries.

"I was delighted to attend the school assembly to present a surprised Grace with her prize in front of the whole school.

"I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the children who took part in the competition, Tesco Burnley and Reel Cinema for contributing to the prizes, the schools for their support and, of course, a big thank you to Grace who is clearly a star in the making.

"Every child who entered will receive a certificate from me for their efforts.”

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Grace’s award winning design has been turned into a striking Christmas card to represent the town’s MP across England and even as far afield as Japan.

Entries were judged in 3 categories and a winner selected from each category. The overall winner was then selected from the three category winners.

Headteacher at St Augustine’s, Mrs Sinead Colbeck said:“We are incredibly proud of Grace and her artistic efforts; we are looking forward to working with her to choose some exciting new additions to our library.”

The runners up, who each received a goody bag of prizes and had their designs printed inside the card, were Freya Rose Fenwick of Worsthorne Primary School and Harrison Taylor from Rosegrove Infant School.