YORK youngsters will be going head to head with top city stock brokers as part of a year-long project.

Pupils from Burnholme Community College will be competing with Leeds-based stockbrokers J M Finn to see who can come out with most money after a year of buying and selling shares.

The students will be given an imaginary £50,000 and a profile of ten real businesses.

Once a month they will get the chance to sell shares that are not doing well and buy profitable ones.

The project has come about through the Enterprise In Residence scheme which Burnholme is involved in.

The scheme is run by Enterprise Insight - a venture between national leading business organisations.

It involves a business person going into 12 schools in the country for three years to help students incorporate business into subjects and to work with the schools' senior management.

Former England Rugby Union captain and top businessman David Perry is working at Burnholme.

Mr Perry is the former boss of games manufacturer John Waddingtons and also has connections with Bellway Homes, Anglian Group plc, Minorplanet Systems plc, and the National Provincial Building Society.

Mr Perry started working with the school in September and has also worked on the school's bid for business college status, and set up a visit for graphic design students to Communisis, a graphic design company in Leeds.

John Fletcher, the business link co-ordinator at the school, said the project, which would be launched in September, will be very exciting for the students.

He said: "The students will be getting experience of real-world maths within a school situation.

"It will be very exciting for them as they will get the chance to blow £50,000 with no consequences.

"They will be encouraged to look at market trends and whether the war is affecting certain companies."

The project also ties in with the school's bid to become a business college, which was launched earlier this year.

If it is successful it will become the sixth school in the city to receive specialist status.

It is taking part in a drive to raise £50,000 and put together a detailed plan for the bid.

Meanwhile, students from Fulford School, York, will be rubbing shoulders with the likes of Baroness Thatcher and Sir Richard Branson at a star-studded business convention in London.

The students will attend the Institute of Directors Centenary Convention at the Royal Albert Hall on April 30.

Other speakers at the convention include space pioneer and second man on the Moon Buzz Aldrin and political editor of the BBC Andrew Marr.

Speakers will discuss their views, experiences, successes and failures at the event to mark the 100th anniversary of the institute.

Updated: 09:05 Friday, April 11, 2003