Students at Helena Romanes School in Great Dunmow took part in a Business Challenge and solved real commercial problems for real businesses.

Groups of year l2s competed, presenting their solutions to their companies on Friday.

The challenge is an annual event and this year’s problems involved social media, raising awareness and marketing to specific customers. The students met their businesses at the start of the week, were given a brief and had five working days to sort out the problems.

The winners were the group that worked with TSB who were asked to redesign the bank’s branch in Great Dunmow High Street. They won £500 to share between them.

Joseph Orves TSB branch manager, said: “It was really great to see the effort and enthusiasm they put in. I was really impressed with their ideas. They should be really proud of everything they achieve in just a week.”

Eleanor Pantlin, from the winning team, said: “The event was really enjoyable. It built up our idea of what the world of work consists of and what we can expect from working for a business. We were given a large amount of freedom for this task which helped everyone to work independently and helped us think outside the box.”

Deputy head of sixth form, Sam Hector said: “It was great to hear that the TSB group came up with a pitch that was almost the same as one a group of specialists had given.”

He said: “Each group gave their presentation in a mature and professional manner and were a credit to themselves and the school, which made judging extremely difficult. We would like to thank all the businesses who took part: P&A Wood, Out There Sports, Zoe’s cafe, 1Life, Pure Body Health Ltd and Michael Richardson Football Academy (MRFA).