Two schoolchildren who take art classes with the same teacher in Croydon have won prizes in a national postcard competition.

Sinyi Ye, age 12, won the 1st prize of £500 in the ART 12-16 category, and Judy Liu, 7, won the 1st prize of £250 in the SCHOOL ART 7-11 category in the Trafalgar Way postcard competition that was held recently.

The competition commemorates the journey of the naval messenger who brought home the news from Admiral Nelson's victory over the French and Spanish fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 by encouraging contestants to create postcards commemorating the journey in some way.

Sinyi and Judy's teacher Yellon Ran Huang, a ceramics tutor at Sutton College, has been running the Children Art Classes in Croydon for the past few years and also praised alongside her students for their designs.

Both Sinyi and Judy drew early 19th century scenes reimagining the naval messenger's journey from the cape to the coast with news of the battle, beating hundreds of other contestants who entered this year's competition.

Yellon said she "believes that teaching art is not just teaching someone how to paint, but also guiding them on how to use media as their own individual visual language to communicate".

The awards ceremony was held earlier this month (November 6), hosted by former President of the Royal Society of Marine Artists Geoff Hunt. c