Sheldon School welcomes celebrity chef Paul Rankin

Students at Sheldon School, Chippenham were treated to a visit from celebrity chef, Paul Rankin courtesy of Sodexo, the world’s largest services company, on Tuesday 3 December.

Sodexo the school’s caterer has been working with Paul Rankin for some 15 years. The visit was organised to open the new dining room at the school, called The Diner. The school council was heavily involved with the design which is based on an American diner theme with red leather seating and high level tables.

The Diner is one of five catering areas at the school.

On arrival Paul meet with the sixth form DT: Food Technology students before hosting and judging a year 11 ready, steady cook challenge which saw two teams compete. Paul then joined Sodexo staff to serve students lunch in the new look dining room before going to judge the year 8 cake decorating competition. The quality of the entries prompted Paul to show his appreciation via Twitter where he posted a photo of some of the entries, http://bit.ly/IHhJIe.

Mr Neil Spurdell, headmaster at Sheldon School said, “We thoroughly enjoyed our day with Paul. The students loved all the activities they had with him and really appreciated the opportunity to talk to him as he served and mingled with them at lunchtime.

His visit to Sheldon has certainly left a lasting impression and has shown our students that food, cooking and eating healthily is important and can be a great deal of fun”. Sodexo has been providing catering at Sheldon School for over 10 years. Nicole Owen, Sodexo’s general manager at the school said: “We were thrilled that Paul Rankin was able to come and open the new Diner, we are all very proud of the new look facility and to have a chef of Paul’s calibre come and not only open the Diner but take part in various activities with the students was fantastic.

It was not only the students who enjoyed meeting Paul, my team thoroughly enjoyed meeting him too. All in all a day to remember for all of us”.