City slickers: The team form Chandlers Ford

FORGET the playground, these Hampshire whiz-kids have just run riot on the world's money markets, picking up a tidy £22,000 profit.

The five high-rollers scooped first prize in the finals of a national share-dealing competition held at the London Stock Exchange.

They beat more than 1,600 school teams from across Britain in the ProShare National Investment Programme. But despite their success, their cash will stay tantalisingly out of reach - it was the paper profit on a fantasy figure of £50,000 given to all entrants.

Still, the 16-year-olds from Chandler's Ford had the consola-tion of winning £2,000 for Thornden School, where they are studying GCSE economics. They also won £200 each in prizes.

The competition involved managing a collective investment for three clients by studying the markets through annual reports, newspapers, and the internet.

The final stage was a presenta-ion on the performance of their portfolio, which focused mainly on telecommunications and pharmaceutical companies.

Over the six months of the programme one of their hot tips, Stanford Rook, more than doubled its already healthy share price. Delighted headteacher Dr Robert Sykes said: "They beat teams who were all older than them. Most were A-level students and a large number in the final were grammar schools and public schools."

Economics teacher Roger Scott said: "Just getting to the final was a tremendous achievement. I'm very proud of them. You have to have the right group of kids, and we had a group who worked hard together. It was an excellent experience for them."

Asked what they were going to do with their £200, pupil Tom Hastings said he might put it towards a car while his colleague Chris Fox decided to wait. "Invest it," he declared.

Converted for the new archive on 25 January 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.