The 15 young people from Tresham Institute's NVQ food preparation and cooking course are providing the food for the band while they are on tour in the region. And the budding chefs are enjoying mingling with the stars. They have already met all-girl band The Saturdays, who are supporting Take That.

As well as cooking for the headliners they will also be preparing the food for 400 guests at Coventry's Ricoh Arena this week.

Last week they catered for the Capital Radio Summertime Ball at the Emirates Stadium, in London, which featured stars JLS, Dizzee Rascal and Leona Lewis.

They also met boy band Westlife backstage.

Tutor John Fahy, who trained at Tresham in the early 1970s, said: "I set up these opportunities through my contacts at the Craft Guild of Chefs.

"I'm always hammering home to the students that they will meet people along the way who could help them further on in their career.

"It's great that they're already able to get out in the real world and work at these events.

"We've also catered for the Queen and we've done FA Cup finals and England football matches.

"It's great experience for them.

"We started doing the Take That gigs on Monday and we had to leave Tresham at 2pm. We only finished packing up at 1am and then we had to be back in college the next day.

"We're doing three nights in total and next month we're doing the Oasis gigs at the Ricoh and the Test match at Edgbaston."

The Take That Circus tour is the biggest stadium tour ever staged in Britain.

More than a million people will see the band perform live at 20 stadium dates across the country.

Student Sharon Tang, 18, from Kettering, said: "There was an amazing atmosphere. We managed to meet The Saturdays who are all really tiny. Hopefully we'll get to meet Take That, too."

And former Kingswood pupil Mark Cullen, 18, who lives on the Lodge Park estate in Corby, said: "I really like Take That.

"We managed to sneak off to watch some of the gig after we had done the food and it was brilliant."

Pupils have now drawn up a wish list for Mr Fahy so he can arrange for them to cater for their favourite singers in the future.

So far the list includes Bon Jovi, Celine Dion and Rod Stewart.