A BUDDING young artist from a Mill Hill school has beaten more than 5,000 others to win a national competition to design a thank you card.

Berfin Tasyurdu, 11, a pupil at Deansbrook Junior School, designed the card to thank volunteers who give their time to read with her and provide individual reading tuition.

The competition was run by Volunteer Reading Help (VRH), a charity that trains the volunteers to give help to children aged between six and 11.

Harriet Watson, Volunteer Services Manager of VRH, said: “I was absolutely delighted to present the prize to Berfin, as she has so enjoyed reading with her mentor George.

“The school said that her confidence and reading ability has increased dramatically.”

Berfin spends half-an-hour every week with her mentor George Jones, who also works with two other children at the school.

Hale Ward Councillor Brian Gordon, who is a governor at the school, said: “Teaching English-reading these days can often be very challenging task.

“The volunteer readers deserve our utmost praise for the time and effort they put in. Deansbrook is proud that some of its pupils have clearly benefited from this extra tuition.”

The North West London branch of VRH opened 13 years ago and now has 101 volunteers helping more than 300 children in 71 schools across Barnet and Brent.

But Ms Watson said the charity is still looking to expand further. She said: “We are always looking to recruit more volunteers and it's a very satisfying and rewarding thing to do.

“It's a win-win situation – the children benefit tremendously and it's a good experience for the volunteers.”