The Year 11 pupils attended an awards ceremony at The Magic Circle Headquarters in London on 12 June where the winners were announced.

The pupils undertook the work as part of a major awards scheme for school children, organised by the Direct Marketing Association, in which the teams had to devise a direct marketing campaign for one of three charities –Samaritans, the RSPCA and Marie Curie Cancer Care.

The Dunluce team, ‘The Drama Queens’, comprising Gillian Goodman, Rebekah January, Hannah Millar and Ellen Simpson created a campaign for Samaritans to raise awareness of its ‘Developing Emotional Awareness and Learning (DEAL) programme. (Incidentally, Gillian Goodman and Rebekah January, two very busy pupils, were also part of the team from Dunluce representing Northern Ireland in the UNESCO UK World Heritage Youth Summit in Lyme Regis in May).

Jo Collins from Samaritans, said: “It is fantastic to be involved in the Young Direct Marketing Awards. Not only has the competition allowed us to raise awareness of our service amongst a vulnerable age group, it has allowed teachers and pupils to find out about our Developing Emotional Awareness and Learning programme*. (*DEAL is available to schools nationwide and aims to help schools develop the skills that young people need to cope with life’s challenges and develop their emotional health and wellbeing).

“We were very impressed with the campaign ideas that the entrants came up with. It looks like there is a generation of creatives out there with brilliant careers ahead of them.”

Mrs Liz McIlveen, Head of English at Dunluce, said: “Such an awards scheme enables pupils to discover new interests and equips them with real-life work skills. Researching and creating campaigns for different charities has also meant that the pupils have had to get a real grip of the issues and now appreciate the importance of charity work even more. We are of course delighted that our pupils’ hard work has been recognised.”

Now in its fourth year, the scheme attracted over 200 entries from schools across the UK.

The Awards were launched to help children work towards national curriculum requirements by giving them direct experience of the creative and business principles behind marketing communication.

As part of their work for the competition, the pupils have gained valuable experience in four key subjects, English, Business Studies, Art and Young Enterprise. The skills the pupils have developed will be vital in helping them work towards their national curriculum requirements.

The competition was designed to give pupils experience of one of the UK’s largest industries, worth over £37 billion a year.