A team of creative Year 8 students have gone into the designer shoe business for the annual Durham County Council Future Business Magnates Competition (FBM).

This year's all-girl team, who are working with Art Teacher, Mrs Mulryan came up with the ingenious idea of recycling unwanted shoes by customising them in a variety of ways including adding drawings, crystals, studs and designer shoelaces.

The company, named 'Carbon Footprint', will be launched as an online shop very soon and customers will be able to browse and select from a selection of pre-made designs or choose a design-it-yourself option, which will then be produced by our artistic entrepreneurs and mailed to any address in the UK. There is even a custom design service for those with special requests, such as a specific colour scheme.

Each year, competing schools are linked with a local business mentor; our team is working with Spennymoor based, 'C2M (UK) Ltd', a company which specialises in supporting inventors and entrepreneurs in the North East, so we are in good hands.

The competition, in which over 25 schools across the county compete for the title of FBM Champions, involves six challenges including a Dragon's Den style presentation to an esteemed panel of judges. King James has had great success in the FBM competition in previous years; our students triumphed on two consecutive occasions and this year's team are hoping to achieve the third victory. Good luck ladies!