Year 9 students from Flixton Girls’ High School reaped the rewards for working hard over the past four months when they visited their Business Language Champions to showcase their overseas marketing projects.

The 15 youngsters visited Directors Nathan and Jane Smith at Smith and Smith PR in Manchester to proudly exhibit the awards they had won in a language challenge set by the company back in January.

Smith and Smith PR had challenged students to create a French brand for a smoothie which had to contain all five-a-day fruit portions in one glass. Work began in January 2010, with 200 Year 9 pupils putting their language and creativity skills to the test to develop their PR campaigns.

A panel of judges, including Smith and Smith’s Alison Doering, who spoke to students about her own experience of languages, had the difficult task of whittling 100 pupils down to 15 finalists. Everyone was in agreement about the standard of work produced, as Mrs Hansraj, Flixton's Head of Modern Foreign Languages said,

“I was particularly impressed by the seasonal flavoured smoothies and the customised labels used to market the product. The teams prepared presentations in French for their campaigns and answered all questions confidently when interviewed by the judges.”

Alison Doering also commented on students’ infectious enthusiasm:

“It was a fantastic experience and the girls reignited my passion for languages and PR.”

For more information on the BLC programme in the North West please contact Cristina Sousa.

Pictured: Flixton Girls displaying the results of their French smoothie PR campaigns