A FORMER Dragons Den judge praised a pair of Chelmsford entrepreneurs on social media as well as giving them a top award.

Theo Paphitis has recognised Sounds Right Phonics efforts as a business and awarded the company winners of his Small Business Sunday award.

Alex Burnside and Charlie Day, two sisters from Chelmsford, launched Sounds Right Phonics Classes for Kids in 2016.

Business legend, Mr Paphitis was tweeting about the pair on Sunday night as he named them his ‘Small Business Sunday’ award winners.

Sounds Right Phonics Classes for Kids offers fun and educational classes for children under five, teaching them letters and sounds, building speaking and language skills and preparing them for school.

Charlie said: “We are two sisters building a business from our home office and we are so pleased to have this support from Theo Paphitis.

“We have over 100 new followers on Twitter and our profile has already been raised by winning the competition.

“We cannot wait until the event in 2019, we are sure that we will learn a lot from it.”

The award takes place each week on a Sunday night between 5pm-7.30pm.

Small businesses are invited to tweet Theo Paphitis using #sbs and on Monday night at 8pm he picks his winners.

The winners are then invited along to the Small Business Sunday Event in 2019 which takes place in Birmingham where Charlie and Alex will be given their award by Mr Paphitis.

Alex said, “We have built our business from a couple of classes in our home town to franchises all over the UK, offering flexibility for working mums whilst building their own business.

“We are thrilled to have been selected by Theo Paphitis.”