PROUD Basingstoke students cooked a special lunch to celebrate the refurbishment of four learning spaces in their school.

Fort Hill Community School has spent about £245,000 on improvements to the food technology department, library, ICT and music and media suite, and a science practical room.

Hospitality and catering GCSE students at the Kenilworth Road school prepared a buffet lunch for guests, including Basingstoke MP Maria Miller, in their newly-refurbished food technology department to celebrate their revamped facilities.

Bryony Gladwish, 14, a hospitality and catering GCSE student at Fort Hill, said the improved food technology facility, which cost £150,000, is a real boon to the pupils.

She added: “We have more space, which is fantastic, and more storage on surfaces. It’s actually the same space as before but it seemed so much smaller before.”

Mrs Miller said: “It’s a great privilege to be able to open what is a fabulous new facility for students. I think this is a wonderful addition at Fort Hill.”

About £20,000 was spent on a science practical room and £25,000 on the library, which now has a wireless network and laptops installed, as well as upgraded ICT desktops, an interactive whiteboard and a social seating area, which is open to the community.

The library has been named the Richard Osborne Library, after the school’s popular chairman of governors who died last month.

With a £50,000 injection, the ICT and music and media department is now kitted out with 15 Apple Mac computers – which headteacher Lesley Lawson hopes to increase to 30 – including software for GCSE media students to make and edit their own films with their own soundtracks. GCSE music pupils can also use the facility to compose and record their own music.

Mrs Lawson said: “The important thing is to give the children the very best facilities that we can. They really appreciate them and it’s investing in their future.”

The headteacher added that the school received about £80,000 towards the food technology department revamp from Hampshire County Council, with the rest of the money coming from the capital budget.