Maidenhead school pupil 'very happy' to win Christmas card competition

The winner and runners-up of this year’s Christmas card competition with Maidenhead MP Josh Reynolds have been announced.

Winner Ayaan Shenoy, aged nine, of St Luke’s Primary School said he was ‘very happy’ to have had his Christmas tree design chosen to feature on Mr Reynolds’ card.

This year’s runners-up were fellow St Luke’s pupil Hiaan Chakrabarti, aged four, and Nivaan Maiti from Riverside School.

The Advertiser first teamed up with the town’s former MP Theresa May more than 20 years ago to run a competition for youngsters to design a card to be sent out to community figures, politicians and dignitaries across the world.

The competition has taken place each year since, and earlier this month, Mr Reynolds was at the Advertiser’s offices to judge the entries for a second year.

The Lib Dem MP had tasked pupils aged 11 and under, who live in the Maidenhead constituency to create a design for his card.

Winner Ayaan said he wanted to make the design ‘look very colourful’ so it was ‘in the Christmas spirit’.

On taking first place, he added: “I felt very happy because this is my first time I ever won something.”

Ayaan said he is ‘very excited and happy’ to have won the prize of a day out at Legoland for five people.

Sam Stevenson, headteacher at St Luke’s, said she was ‘very proud’ two pupils from the school were recognised.

She said: “Children here work very hard and it’s all their own work and it’s all to do with the community.”

Rachel Richards, assistant headteacher and Ayaan’s class teacher, added: “We have a lot of creative children in our school and we do promote that in our school as well – being creative and getting them to tap into those artistic skills as well.”

Mr Reynolds added: “I really enjoyed this year’s entries to the Christmas card competition.

“Such a wide variety of cards from a range of students right across Maidenhead, so it was great to be able to have so many entries and a really difficult decision when it came to judging. I’m really proud of all the guys that [have] been able to submit entries to the Christmas card competition and the winner – well deserved.

“As well as the runners-up, it was a really difficult choice this year.”