A talented young chef from Wolverley CE Secondary School has won through to a prestigious cooking competition. Laura Alton who is only fifteen was one of two winners in the recent Area final of the Rotary Young Chef competition held in Redditch. She will now compete in the District final on Saturday 23rd Feb, to be held at the Birmingham College of Food.

Laura had to produce a healthy main course dish, to serve 2 people costing no more than £8.00 and prepared in 1and a half hours. She produced a dish of Spicy prawn tagliatelle which involved her in making her own pasta and flavoured foccacia bread.

Tracy Barry who is in charge of Food technology at Wolverley said, "This is a tremendous achievement. As everyone knows, cooking is quite stressful especially when you do thinks like pasta and bread that do not always work out. To do it under the pressure of a competition is even more impressive."

Laura and another Wolverley student, Roni Lacey, won a preliminary round held in school to achieve their places at the Area Final. The competition is supported by the Rotary Club and Wolverley's preliminary round and winners were supported by Bewdley Rotary Club. The Rotary Club website features news of Laura's win.

Headteacher, Kevin O'Regan, said, "I am delighted for Laura; this is a fantastic achievement. We will all be praying for her when she goes to Birmingham on Saturday." Mr O'Regan added, "There is a lot of emphasis now on giving young people the skills to cook. Many schools abandoned practical cookery some years ago but we have always believed here that it is an essential life skill and an important vehicle for learning all kinds of things."

If Laura is successful at Birmingham, she will go on to the regional final in Gloucester.