PROOF of the "trickledown" of business knowledge came in the form of a £22,000 cheque from the Government to Burnholme Community College in York.

This is on top of the £150,000 the community college received from the Department of Education and Skills in January when it achieved specialist business and enterprise status, with a further boost of £60,000 a year for four years.

This time the college successfully bid for the money under the Enterprise Pathfinder scheme, a bid devised by John Fletcher, head of the college's careers and business links.

College students spend a few days with businesses in the region in order to become enterprise advisers assigned to primary schools to help pupils set up mini-businesses.

Each primary school will be allocated £2,000 to start their little ventures which, hopefully, will make money for school coffers.

Burnholme Community College received its specialist business and enterprise status after raising £50,000 to make its own bid for it.

Now plans include introducing top technology facilities in maths, ICT and science and a new £150,000 conference centre and small business unit which should be ready in the grounds of the college by October.

Mr Fletcher said: "It was difficult to write the Pathfinder bid and not cover the same ground we covered in pushing for specialist status.

"But the extra dimension was that our GCSE media study students will put together a magazine of 'good practice' based on the procedures we forge between ourselves and primary schools for distribution to other schools. This is the true spirit of being Pathfinders."

Updated: 10:47 Monday, July 19, 2004