An ingenious junior school pupil beat her senior school rivals in a competition to come up with the best business idea after impressing Dragons’ Den-style judges with her sustainable t-shirt for toddlers.

10-year-old Alice Dryden, sat mesmerised as her teachers at Lewes Old Grammar Junior School explained in assembly that there was to be a junior and senior school-wide competition to come up with a great entrepreneurial idea that would capture the imagination of the business world.

The competition was entered by a raft of teenagers aged up to 16, but Alice’s notion to invent a t-shirt for little ones with different Velco-attached logos to suit the time of year or child’s mood impressed the judges so much that she walked off with the £200 prize.

Alice had the idea of creating a product that saved parents time and money whilst being environmentally friendly. She suggested making t-shirts for one-to-three-year olds made from organic cotton that came with a variety of motifs that attached with Velco and could be changed for different occasions so that parents weren’t under pressure to buy one for every occasion.

Amongst her eight motifs she included a Christmas tree, an ice lolly, a sun, a pumpkin, a firework motif and a birthday cake. One of the dragons pointed out what a great idea this was too in terms of persuading reluctant toddlers to get dressed by letting them choose their picture for that day.

Alice visited different clothing outlets including Asda, H&M, Tesco, John Lewis and M&S and decided that John Lewis and M&S were her target markets. She presented her estimated manufacturing costs and her profit per item and was questioned by the Dragons who were selected from the parent body of the school.

She said: “I was watching the news and they were talking about fashion and people buying and buying and buying with all the packaging and manufacturing involved and I thought we needed ideas on how to reduce the impact on the environment. I was quite surprised I won because some of the other ideas were so good!’

Lewes Old Grammar Junior School headteacher Carrie Whyte: “Alice worked on her project completely independently and made her proto type herself – ideas were submitted, the senior school headteacher selected those to take part in the final and then they were given brief instructions about preparing a marketing plan. Aged just 10 year old and competing against senior school pupils, she did amazingly well.  We are incredibly proud of her.”