Teaching Cookery in Schools

Learning to cook is a basic life skill and prepares us for a very important part of our long term health management. With problems of obesity on the one hand and anorexia and food relating illnesses on the other it is increasing important for young people to learn how to eat correctly and learn to cook for themselves.

As the world of ready meals and convenience food has become the norm we are living in a society where children are not learning to cook everyday simple food in the home from their parents or carers and we now have a generation of parents who have not had the benefit of home cooking.

Our cookery school teaches some of fundamentals about nutrition and healthy eating in a simple and straightforward way. We make cooking the perfect combination of fun and creativity; yet provide a great way of teaching children about the food they eat, and simple kitchen skills to give them the freedom to cook again where home cooking is not the norm.

Children benefit from both visual (by way of demonstration) and hands-on experience, so by teaching basic kitchen skills we empower them to be confident around food, experiment and most importantly to develop a skill that will enable them to cook for themselves.

Our programmes include modules about health and nutrition related to different ages group, eating to follow a good diet and learning to cook to support their dietary requirements. We teach about different food groups to maximise their learning and growth potential, vitamins, minerals, necessary for good development and simple recipes that will enable children to have a go at cooking everyday food.

Out teaching method can vary from classroom style presentations to hands on cookery classes and cookery challenges for a fun and learned cookery module.

Reviews from St Helen’s Cooking Challenge

I really did enjoy the Cooking challenge. I never really took an interest in cooking but after today I think that will be changing. I have learnt how to make 4 different smoothies, different salads, spaghetti Bolognese and a scrumptious lime tort.

"I didn’t realise smoothies are so easy to make and so healthy! That’s definitely the breakfast for me from now on." - Shalini

"I Love desserts so making the Lime Tort by myself was awesome and so easy – I will make this at home for sure." Natasha – year 10

"I’ve never really cooked before but I had so much fun today and learnt so much about healthy food that tasted brilliant – I didn’t think the two were possible" – Ella B Year 10