Pupils at Castle Rushen High School had a chance to hone their skills with the help of visitors from the world of business.

Members of the school’s year 8 (12- and 13-year-olds) worked with Junior Achievement, three businesses and one charity to create bespoke marketing and promotional materials as part of this year’s Enterprise Challenge.

Pupils began the two-day event with JA’s Enterprise Challenge task. Supported by JA volunteers, the pupils created a promotional package for a fictional pop concert in the island. As well as developing their marketing and enterprise skills, students enjoyed managing a budget and working under strict time constraints.

To develop their skills further, the school invited Isle of Man Creameries, Davison’s Ice Cream, the Apple Orphanage and Beach Buddies to create a ’real world’ enterprise challenge.

Having been briefed by a representative from each organisation, the students had five hours to put their promotional packages together.

Working in small groups, they had to create a logo, radio advert, press release, launch event and social media campaign to promote a new product or area of development for one of the local organisations.

The pupils then presented their ideas to the organisations and a winning group was selected.

Whilst the Apple Orphanage and Beach Buddies have taken part in previous Enterprise Challenges, Castle Rushen High School was delighted to welcome Davison’s Ice Cream and Isle of Man Creameries this year.

A spokesman for the school said: ’The students really enjoyed taking part in the project, especially the 24 students given the Davison’s brief who were all given a free ice cream.

’All four organisations were impressed by the students’ ingenuity, original thinking and the high-quality promotional packages that they created. They have all said they can use some of the ideas and resources created by the students in their actual promotions over the coming months.’

Laura Williams, the teaching and learning co-ordinator at Castle Rushen,who oversaw the whole project, said she was delighted by the commitment and work ethic shown by the children and also by the skills they developed over the two days. She was also pleased that four local organisations were willing to give up their time to work with pupils on the project.