A team of enterprising young business students from a Hitchin school picked up a host of awards while making it through to the national finals of a prestigious trading competition.

The group of talented teens from the Priory School in Bedford Road were handed four honours and qualified for the Student Investor Final in May.

They beat off more than 10,000 teams featuring around 40,000 students across the UK and are now one step closer to winning an all-expenses paid trip to New York which will include a once-in-a-lifetime visit to the New York Stock Exchange.

The winning team will also receive a cool £2,000 for their school and £200 for each team member.

Priory School’s hard-working head of business Lynne Evans told the Comet: “All our business and economics students take part.

“They love this real life challenge of buying and selling shares and competing against each other.“

Year 12 A Level Economics, Geography, and English student Joe Galvin added: “I still can’t believe we were number one in the country for most of the semi final.

“Each stage of the competition gets more difficult but looking forward to the final. Our knowledge of the stock market will be really tested.”