AN entrepreneurial team from Sunnydale School, Shildon, has been presented with its prize for winning the Gerrard/Darlington & Stockton Times Fantasy Fund Manager Competition.

The five year 10 pupils - David Harbottle, Leon James, John Merchant, Trevor Johnson and Peter Duce - beat 27 other schools from around the region to win a computer package for their school.

By expertly managing a notional £100,000 portfolio of shares, they managed to increase its value at a time when the stock market was in decline.

Les Dobson, the school's teacher of entrepreneurship who supervised the pupils' investment efforts, said the fund had been actively managed throughout the 12 weeks of the competition.

"They decided they would buy and sell every week. They also decided to keep out of tobacco stocks on principle."

Mr Dobson said the team's shrewdest buy had been Shire Pharmaceuticals. "Trevor Johnson read in a Sunday paper that the company was introducing a new drug in the US that was thought to be much more effective than competitive products. The following the week the share price rose 99p - a 15pc increase."

Other shares which performed well for the team were Old Mutual Insurance, the mobile telephone business mmO2 and the engineering/electronics company Invensys.

Ewan Pollicott, divisional director of private client stockbrokers Gerrard, who presented the team with their prize, said: "Their performance was excellent and it demonstrated the benefits of actively managing a portfolio.