Pictured: Jilly Cosgrove from Barques with students from Small Heath School and teacher Debbie Mahon 

Budding young entrepreneurs at Small Heath School are being given the chance to design their own restaurant as part of the Gastro Card Restaurant Challenge.

Pupils on the Edexcel BTEC level 2 Certificate in Hospitality course have been split into five groups and will battle it out to come up with ideas for a new venture in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter. The project will involve planning all aspects of the business, from choosing what type of restaurant it will be and setting the menu, to deciding the look and feel of the interior and how to market it to potential customers.

The Gastro Card Restaurant Challenge will form 50% of the overall grade for the course, which runs until April 2012, and is a fun way to prepare the year 11 students for their career path after secondary school, whether it's a college course or employment.

To kick start the project, the class paid a visit to the Engine Room in New Hall Square, Birmingham, which will be the venue for their restaurant. By taking pictures of this vacant building, it helped pupils to visualise how the space could be laid out with a bar, dining area, kitchen and toilets.

As part of the project, the Gastro Card is also organising presentations and workshops with key players in the industry. For starters, Gordon Thompson, from architectural interior designers Monteith Scott, set the students thinking about how they could bring the building to life in terms of interior design and practicalities of the floor layout, while playing on the history of the building at the old Science Museum site.

Teacher Dawn Tate said: "The Restaurant Challenge will help pupils experience a real life situation that will develop and support their skills and knowledge for the world of work. Having visitors who aren't affiliated with the school has helped the students understand more about the realities of starting up a restaurant. The class is very competitive so, by stirring up some competition, it will help them focus more on their studies and bring a fun element to learning."

The pupils are now busy getting to grips with the brief and will soon be visited by a local chef to help them compile menus to suit their chosen style of restaurant. Lastly, representatives from Barques, a design and PR agency based in the Jewellery Quarter, will assist the teams with a marketing and PR plan for their concepts.

The task will conclude with the teams presenting their finalised ideas and taster menu, which they will cook themselves, to a board of members from the Gastro Card. The team with the best concept and tastiest menu will be crowned the winners.

Richard Riley, Head of Work Related Learning at Small Heath School, said: "The school has a great reputation for supporting our business partners, the aim being that both sides gain from the relationship.  Our children develop the employability skills needed by businesses and, hopefully, our partners gain from the association too.

"The teachers and pupils feel very privileged to have been asked to be involved with the Gastro Card Restaurant Challenge. Now they know the full brief of what they have to do, they can't wait to get stuck in to the task."