TWO schoolgirls have beaten off competition from across the region to make it into the national finals of a marketing contest with an anti-bullying campaign.

Meeral Siddiqui and Katherine Sykes, both 13, from St Michael's School, in Billingham, will go to London later this week after winning the top spot in the North-East Young Direct Marketing Awards 2007.

The girls have worked for months on an elaborate anti- bullying campaign, designed to raise awareness and funds to help combat the problem.

If they win the national finals of the competition, organised by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), they will see their campaign brought to life by the Beatbullying charity in the next year.

The school's enterprise co- ordinator, Anne Jones, praised the girls for working outside of school hours to complete the campaign.

She said they could have chosen to focus on one of three charities - World Wildlife Fund, Barnardo's or Beatbullying - but opted for the latter one because it touched so many people.

She said: "We are very pleased with their efforts. They have shown great enterprise skills, and were committed, great team-workers and innovative, and they excelled in the creativity of the campaign.

"They made the message about anti-bullying interesting, without undermining the serious issues concerned with this type of campaign."

She said that she and the deputy headteacher were accompanying the girls by train to London tomorrow, where, as a treat, they would be taken to see a show and have time for shopping, before going to the awards at the Magic Circle headquarters on Friday afternoon.

The teenagers hope to follow in the footsteps of a group of older children at St Michael's who won last year's final with their campaign for animal charity PDSA.

John Quinn, from Beatbullying, said he was impressed with their campaign.

He said: "We were very impressed with the new ideas that the entrants came up with. It looks like there is a generation of creative young people out there with brilliant careers ahead of them."

Mike Barnes, of the DMA, said: "The pupils can be very proud to have got this far, as all of the entries were of a very high standard.