Young entrepreneurs turned a tidy profit in a competition modelled on TV's The Apprentice – but are giving it all to good causes.

As part of a maths week at Botwell House School, pupils from Years 3 to 6 were tasked with designing, making and selling products on a shoestring budget of £20 per class.

They sold the items, which ranged from cakes and chocolate truffles to place mats and pots of slime, to other pupils at a market held at the school in Botwell Lane, Hayes on Friday, December 5.

In total, they made a whopping profit of £460, with the winning class raking in £98 – a margin of almost 500 per cent, putting the TV contestants to shame.

But the pupils have decided to give all of their takings to the Friends of the Homeless group at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, in Botwell Lane, Hayes, and the children's ward at Hillingdon Hospital.

Rather than simply hand the money over, the children went to Matalan, where they took advantage of a 20 per cent discount to buy bargain Christmas gifts for the children in the hospital and warm clothes for the homeless.

Year 4 teacher Jennie Forde, who co-ordinates the school's maths team, said: “I'm incredibly proud of all their efforts and what they managed to achieve out of nothing and I hope they've learned that they can do that – make their own money.”

The children have now wrapped all of their gifts ready to give away. The Friends of the Homeless group plans to hand its share out on its usual run on Friday, December 19.