Pupils from Manchester High School for Girls used their loaf in an Apprentice-style lesson with a difference at Cheshire’s Frank Roberts & Sons bakery.

Forty-two students from the school in Grangethorpe Road, Manchester, had to barter with bosses at Frank Roberts & Sons bakery in Northwich, Cheshire, to pay bargain prices for ingredients to decorate gingerbread biscuits and then "sell" the products for the best possible price.

The visit was organised by former chairman of the Frank Roberts bakery, David Roberts, who takes a keen interest in promoting the family business, established in 1887. Roberts later gave the schoolchildren a brief history of the company, a leading supplier of quality bread and novelty gingerbread biscuits.

Roberts said: "It’s great to be involved in school projects, which are not just educational but a lot of fun as well."