A NEW course will soon be served up at Springfields special needs school, in Calne, with the development of a new £380,000 training kitchen complex.

Most of the cash will be invested in building and equipping the new single-story building, which will adjoin the school's technical block.

The icing on the cake will be the inclusion of a restaurant in the complex, where students can serve their food to guests. There will also be storage and changing rooms.

Headteacher Simon Templeman said he hoped the new building would be completed in September and celebrity chef Phil Vickery has been invited to open it.

Mr Templeman said he met the culinary wizard at a cooking demonstration in Burnham-on-Sea, where Mr Templeman lives, and asked Mr Vickery if he would be interested in opening the complex. Days later, the chef wrote to the school to confirm he would.

Mr Templeman, said: "It's a very exciting project. It will provide children with a different sort of education altogether. Rather than a teacher standing at the front of the classroom teaching, the children find the answers themselves."

Initially the school will offer children from Springfields and mainstream schools in Wiltshire an NVQ Level One course in food preparation and cooking, which is recognised by the Hospitality Awarding Body.

Students will be taught by former RAF chef Howard Cale how to prepare and cook a wide variety of foods, use kitchen utensils and about health and safety in the kitchen.

The school hopes to invite the local community, including pensioners, schoolchildren and the local chamber of commerce to come into the new restaurant and have meals cooked for them by the trainees.