When visiting its Dartford site, year 10 students received a design brief by the Starlight Foundation, a charity set up to grant wishes for terminally ill children, as part of their Vocational Media & Communications course.

Howard Hunt Group mentors worked with the students to produce concepts which were then presented to representatives from the print group, Starlight and Swanley Technical College's board of governors.

Designs included a door-drop campaign that featured pictures drawn by ill children, depicting their dreams. Other campaigns focused on cutting costs by condensing the information into a smaller leaflet.

Lucy Edwards, assistant managing director at Howard Hunt Group, said: "The campaigns were really impressive. We asked the students to consider Starlight's current mailings and improve upon them, which they did.

"This has provided our managers with a novel way of practising their coaching and mentoring skills. The initiative has been great fun and hugely beneficial to everyone involved. We're looking forward to developing similar links with more local schools in the coming months."

Charlotte Webster, Starlight, said: "It's amazing how innovative the students have been in terms of the research they completed and incorporating this in their designs. It's been a real eye-opener for us, and we've certainly picked up some ideas we can use in future campaigns."

Last month, Howard Hunt completed a £1m investment in technology and now can boast a daily output of 2m mailpacks.