Mr Gordon Tregear, Vice Lord Lieutenant of West Sussex and Mrs Rosemary Crowley, CBE, officially opened the Wolfson Food and Nutrition Facility, funded by the Wolfson Foundation, at the College of Richard Collyer this week.

The Wolfson Food and Nutrition Facility comprises modern kitchen and lap-top facilities and is the largest facility of its kind in the country being used by AS and A2 students studying the Food, Nutrition and Health course.  The event was hosted by the Principal of Collyer’s, Dr Jackie Johnston, with Vivien Chaffin-Laird, Colin Eley, Aqsa Rafiq, Roger Raymond, Jennifer Simmonds, Sarah Wilks, Robert Yorke and Nicola Whitehead representing the Governing Body. Other VIP guests included Cllr Claire Vickers, Chairman of HDC and Chris Baister, Business Development Manager at HDC. Paul Stoggles from WSCC was also in attendance, along with Graeme Skipper from Fulcrum Design, Ann Avery, who is Food Manager at M&S and Steve Gilham, who managed the project for Collyer’s.

Principal, Dr Jackie Johnston, was delighted that the College of Richard Collyer can benefit from such generosity: “The students and staff at Collyer’s were proud to show-off our new facility to a host of VIPs.  We are hugely grateful to the Wolfson Foundation and delighted that we have been able to develop for the future.  I am confident that it will help the Food and Nutrition success story under Sally Miller to continue!”

A top performing institution, Collyer’s has Beacon status and enjoys an “Outstanding” rating from Ofsted.  The new facilities have literally built upon the continued academic success of Collyer’s and students who arrived in September have already enjoyed the new facilities across the college.

Mr Gordon Tregear, Vice Lord Lieutenant of West Sussex, was honoured to open the facility: “A-level Food and Nutrition at Collyer’s is the largest course of its kind in the country and Sussex should indeed be very proud of Collyer’s and these cutting edge facilities.”

The 21st century facilities include 10 cookers, 24 lap-tops and a state-of-the-art skype-enabled camera.  Guests were treated to a range of healthy and delicious food, prepared by students Natasha Crawford, Hester Doran and Penny Stone.

Sally Miller, subject leader for Food and Nutrition, was thrilled: “I would like to thank the Wolfson Foundation, the Principal and Rosemary Cowley for their vision and incredible support.  I would also like to thank Ann Avery from Marks and Spencers and Gordon Tregear for their continued help and interest in food education at Collyer’s”.

Georgina Child, who is studying Food and Nutrition, was impressed with the new centre: “We’ve really enjoyed using the new facilities this year.  The kitchen and the lap-tops are excellent and we are also very lucky to have a brilliant teacher in Sally Miller”.