STUDENTS at Brighton Hill Community School were given an inspirational tasty treat when a famous entrepreneur dropped by.

Levi Roots, the man behind the Reggae Reggae sauce brand, visited the school in Brighton Way last week to tell students in Year 9 and 10 about his inspirational story.

The celebrity chef shot to fame following his appearance on the BBC hit show Dragons Den, where his now famous reggae reggae song was heard for the first time by thousands of viewers and he managed to acquire £50,000 for a 40 per cent stake in his business by two of the stars of the show, Peter Jones and Richard Farleigh.

Levi came in with his guitar in hand to give a talk to students, interspersed with songs, and tell how he shot to fame as an overnight sensation.

Teachers said what made the Jamaican-British entrepreneur’s story more inspirational to the children was he has achieved his success despite not being able to spell his own name until he was 13-years-old.

Students were inspired to hear how he went from making 67 bottles of his family recipe sauce to suddenly having to deal with an order of 250,000 units from Sainsburys.

Headteacher at Brighton Hill Community School, Chris Edwards said: “We were very fortunate to be visited by someone who is a talented entertainer with such a fascinating life story.

“Our students were totally enthralled by his performance and left feeling motivated to emulate his success.”

The idea behind Levi’s visit to talk to students, who are heading into choosing what subjects they wish to do for their GCSEs, was to provide them with motivation and inspiration that they can achieve anything if they set their minds to it.

After his performance, the chef and businessman stayed on at the school to sign autographs and pose for photographs with starstruck students and many of the staff In the last year Brighton Hill Community School has been pushing to raise its standards and after the introduction of headteacher Mr Edwards the school was rated ‘good’ by Ofsted inspectors in June.

The school had previously been rated as ‘requires improvements’.

Article by Tim Birkbeck

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