Anyone been to The Camelia Botnar Foundation?

My son age 17 attends college doing catering courses, hes in second year now, but he is being offered a place at Camelia Botnar Foundation near Brighton, West Sussex, He will go there for interview, waiting for a date, so meanwhile he wants to know if anyone here attends or attended that place, and tell us what it is like there, give as much as info as you can please, as its such a long way for my son to be away from home, thanks

Anyone been to The Camelia Botnar Foundation?
Hi I attended the Camelia Botnar Foundation for a year in the building department, it was a few years ago now, but when I was there I found it to be a great place, the wages arent great and sometimes you feel like youve been done out but on the whole the experience is very worthwile, its set in right in the middle of the country side and the "main house" is an old manor house when I was there although it wasn't a documented reward system the harder you worked and stayed out of trouble the further you get within about 3/4 months I was given the greatest responsibility which was getting to live in one the outer houses I stayed in North lodge which used to be the gate house, the same thing applies though if you mess about or continualy get in trouble then this will be retracted and you will have to live back in the main house, the difference between the two is living in one of the houses gives you greater freedom, you could freely visit any friends that you have made in one of the other houses you also have to shop for yourselves there was a scheme that you were returned back to wage a percentage of what you spent as long as it was more than £10, for me it was a great experience, but for others it just wasnt for them, what I would suggest that when he has his interveiw he takes in as much as possible and ask as many questions as he can, also if he can get onto a college course that is an added bonus, he would attend crawley college if he got onto a course, and its a deemed a huge responsibility to attend the course, as it is all to easy to go to crawley and spend the day in the town, to try and stop this I remember that they had a deposit scheme and if you dont attend then you lose any money that you have deposited and wont be given the opertunity to go again.





There was also a savings scheme where a percentage of your wage is put into a savings account, after a year I think I had £730 saved which was a great start for when I left.





To sum it up the foundation is a great place if you really want to acheive the cooking your son does may not be cordon blu dishes as a majority of what he cooks is for the other trainees breakfast lunches and tea/dinner thats why gettin on a college course is good. I do speak from the past tho' many things may have changed by now, it was about 10yrs ago that I was there but even then I found it to be a valuble life lesson.





So like I said get him to ask as many questions as possible in order to determnine that this is where he wants to be at, as I knew so many that didnt stick it out and just left.





Hope this helps