Teams go head to head in Sure challenge

The pressure is on for sixth form students taking part in the Sure Apprentice, a school version of the popular BBC show.

Two of the four teams from Ballakermeen High School have now been fired. 'Innovation' and 'Therefore' have left the competition, leaving 'Excelsior' and 'SAP' to battle it out for top team. Members of the winning team will be interviewed by an expert who will choose two students to compete for a fantastic prize.

The second task, which was set and mentored by Terry van Rhyn, Managing Director of Ashgrove Marketing, was to design a marketing campaign for the island s youth market including artwork, promoting a Sure product of their choice. In what was the closest round of the competition to date and with three very original ideas, judges took a nail-biting 20 minutes to decide which team to send home. In the end, Greg Smith, Zoe Brown and Alistair Johnston of Therefore were eliminated.

Simon Last-Sutton, Chief Executive of Cable and Wireless and one of the competition's three judges, said: 'The ultimate winner will benefit from the experience of working for Sure during the summer months, as well as a prize of a new phone upto the value of £300 and £120 credit. To date, I've been hugely impressed by the enthusiasm and imagination shown by the teams for each task they've been given.'

Members of the public can get involved in the next task, which is to design a new mobile phone of the future that will appeal to young people. There's an opportunity to vote for your favourite design by visiting Sure's website www.surecw.com/apprentice from Friday, February 27th. Votes will count towards the judges final decision in this round.

The other judges in the Sure Apprentice are Geoff Corkish MHK and freelance journalist, Joanne Clague.

Mr Corkish said: 'Thanks to this competition, these students are gaining valuable experience in many aspects of working life, including public speaking, meeting deadlines and working with others in a professional manner. All the students who have taken part are a credit to their school.'

Joanne Clague added: 'All the teams have taken this challenge seriously and I've been impressed by the amount of research they've done and the care they've taken

over their presentations. After this experience, they will be more than prepared for university or job interviews!'

The three members of the winning team from the next round will be interviewed by the Managing Director of Ambitions Recruitment, Sharon Kissack. Two will be put through to the final where they will go head to head, organising and hosting a charity event, with expert help from Lesley Turnbull of Manx charity Wish Upon a Dream.