Budding business leaders treated their schoolmates to a whole library of new books, after winning big in a county-wide entrepreneurship competition.

Year four pupils at Upperby Primary School, Carlisle, splashed out on £1,000 worth of new school library books, after being crowned the most profitable business in the Cumbrian Bright Stars awards.

With the award ceremony taking place just before the Easter school holidays, Upperby’s win was the culmination of eight weeks of hard work from the year four children and their teacher Amy Ion.

“The children had to design and make their own mini-business,” Amy explained. “We created a healthy tuck shop selling snacks at break time. The children ran it themselves, we found out what products would be most popular through market research.

“It was very much led by them. We came up with a list of all the foods that they wanted to sell, and then we went round all the different classes to sound out which of those ideas would be most popular to sell.

“We were the most profitable out of all the schools taking part, all across Cumbria. We raised £2,000 in total.”

Amy added that half of their profits were spent on new books for the school, with half to be donated to Eden Valley Hospice. She also said that despite the hard work required by the eight week programme, the children greatly enjoyed the project.

“They absolutely loved it”, she said. “When you talk to them about it, they’re absolutely full of information that they took from it.

The children’s money-making success has made Amy’s year four class mini-celebrities throughout Upperby Primary.

“We had a special assembly introducing the new books. The whole school got to see what came of the children’s hard work, which was so nice for them.

“We’ve updated the whole school library. We’ve got all the new David Walliams books, works by Tom Gates, the new James Bond books for the year six pupils as well as books for the Reception class.”

The Bright Stars competition was organised by the Workington-based Centre for Leadership Performance.

Designed to foster closer connections between businesses and young people in Cumbria, the competition saw a local company sponsor each school taking part, providing funding to get the children’s ideas off the ground.

Sarah Glass, executive director for the Centre for Leadership Performance praised the Upperby pupils for their success, who were sponsored by Carlisle-based catering and facilities management company Orian Solutions.

“Upperby Primary School made a fantastic effort and obviously hugely enjoyed collaborating with Orian Solutions. It is wonderful to see Bright Stars having such a positive impact on the children and benefitting the schools and organisations in the local community such as Eden Valley Hospice. It is a perfect example of the good things that can happen when young people and business get together. Bright Stars shows young people that setting up their own businesses in the future is an option, and that business can be fun.”

“Bright Stars is funded by Cumbrian businesses to help young people feel brave and confident about their futures by gaining a greater understanding of business and local career opportunities.”