STUDENTS from Welburn Hall School proved they have the brains for business when they entered the UK’s largest enterprise competition for secondary schools and colleges.

The Kirkbymoorside school went head-to-head with 19 other teams from schools and colleges across Yorkshire and the Humber after making the regional final of the Make Your Mark Challenge.

The brief for the team of 12 students was to create an entrepreneurial idea inspired by the Olympic and Paralympic values.

Paul Brunyee, assistant head teacher at the school, said the pupils, who all have learning or physical disabilities, came up with a method of teaching able-bodied children to play goal ball.

Goal ball is similar to football except that the ball has a bell in it so that visually-impaired people can play.

Their idea was to blindfold able-bodied children and teach them how to play the game, so giving an insight into what it is like to have sight problems.

The idea was so good that Welburn Hall School came second.

Mr Brunyee said: “They came second out of a pool of 20 schools and given that we have only 40 children on the roll we were working against very big secondary schools, so it speaks volumes for what they have achieved.”

Jane Walton, the head of Make Your Mark in Yorkshire and Humber, said: “Welburn Hall School did exceptionally well to get through to the regional final, especially when you consider that more than 687 teams from across Yorkshire and the Humber registered for the initiative.

“The students obviously worked really hard on their enterprising ideas.”

During the final, the Welburn Hall students were required to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges.

They also answered questions about their business propositions.