A SHERBURN High School pupil is hoping to receive star treatment by winning a national singing competition.

Carrie Winfield, 13, is one of just five finalists in Smash Hits magazine's karaoke competition which offers the winner a recording studio session and celebrity makeover.

Budding pop stars had to send in a recording of themselves singing and judges have whittled the entries down to two boys and three girls.

Smash Hits readers will now decide who has the most star quality by calling a special phone line and listening to exerts from each of the contestants.

Carrie's mum, Janet, said: "We are really excited because this is her best chance yet to really get noticed. We have been putting posters up around the village asking people to support her and the school have also been getting behind her."

Carrie recorded three songs for the competition but Smash Hits selected her version of I Do Love You, by LeAnn Rymes, for the phone line.

This is not the first time that Carrie, of Pinfold Avenue, Sherburn-in-Elmet, has come close to pop fame as she was in the final 40 from more than 17,000 young hopefuls who auditioned to join pop group S Club Juniors.

The teenager also appeared on the BBC's Saturday Show singing a Britney Spears song, and last summer she starred in the West Yorkshire Playhouse production of The Carnival Messiah, alongside her brother Danny. Janet said that Carrie has come a long way since winning a Sherburn-in-Elmet talent show at the age of nine.

"I remember that she froze the first time she got on stage but after that she went from strength to strength. She has won talent shows in Bridlington and Leeds, and the school have been absolutely fantastic. She is in France on a school trip at the moment so I am hoping to drum up lots of support before she gets back."

Details of how to vote for Carrie are in the latest edition of Smash Hits and the last day of voting is on July 8.

Updated: 12:34 Monday, June 30, 2003