One of York's largest private employers has launched its latest campaign to inspire young entrepreneurs.

A series of business workshops for every secondary school in York and North Yorkshire, run by CPP Group Ltd, is now under way.

The Holgate Road firm has begun its massive programme of curriculum-based workshops at Filey School.

This is significant because it represents an expansion of the progamme for the first time into North Yorkshire.

Where it encouraged 11 secondary schools last year, this time the firm is reaching out to 60 more in the region as a whole.

The programme, designed to develop students' skills and understanding in a number of key business areas, hugely impressed The Press Business Awards judges last November, when the 1,100-staff CPP won the Best Business & Education Link category.

In their citation, the judges said: "CPP is playing a pivotal role in moulding the entrepreneurs of the future who may one day collect The Press Business Awards of their own."

The workshop at Filey School focused on the importance of human resources (HR) and gave an insight into the broad area of HR, recruitment, contracts, training and development, disciplinary and grievance.

Phil English, curriculum leader for business and enterprise at Filey School, said: "We are very pleased about the involvement of local businesses in our school curriculum.

"The CPP workshop provides a fantastic opportunity for our students to acquire commercial knowledge, bridging the academic and commercial worlds."

The school workshops have been developed by CPP in association with North Yorkshire Business Education Partnership (NYBEP).

They are at the core of CPP's Corporate Social Responsibility policy aimed at supporting schools and colleges.

Following Filey School, the next workshop was delivered at Whitby College yesterday.

The 2008 programme will benefit students aged between 14 and 19, and will cover subjects including customer service in business, job seeking skills, IT in business, managing your money, objectives and the business Environment, and HR.

CPP took the decision to expand its programme of specialist workshops following a two-year period of focusing its efforts in York.

The success of the York programme and the support of NYBEP mean that its 2008 programme extends to the whole of North Yorkshire.

More than 1,000 students are expected to have benefited from the programme by July 2008.

Each workshop is designed to help develop subject-related knowledge, according to Katy Hutchinson, who is responsible for delivering the CPP HR workshop.

"In addition to employability and enterprise skills, we are also assisting schools to respond to the Every Child Matters agenda by helping young people to achieve economic wellbeing," she said.

Wendy Capelin, head of corporate HR, said: "If the programme is a success we hope to extend it even further geographically, and continue our goal of equipping young people with life and employability skills."