YEAR ten pupils on the Prince's Trust programme at a Darlington school have opened a profitable tuck shop.

The five youngsters, at Beaumont Hill School, started the break time shop as part of the entrepreneurship and enterprise section of the trust's xl programme.

Pupil James Cumiskey said: "We started the tuck shop because there wasn't one here for us to use and the nearest shops are quite far away from school."

The other pupils are Danny Wright, Darrian Law, Andrew Mason and Andrew Rutt. The five carried out market research to assess the viability of their business before putting it into action.

Danny said: "First we surveyed all of the pupils and teachers at the school to see if they would use the tuck shop, then we went to all the local shops to find out what they were charging for their sweets, crisps and drinks so we could match their prices."

The tuck shop has been running successfully since January and opens for 15 minutes every morning break selling sweets, juice, fruit, water and cereal bars.

The group has already made enough profit to pay back a £100 loan that the school gave them to buy stock and any profit they earn now can either be used as wages, or to invest in something for the school or for a trip for the five pupils.