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It can be great fun getting creative with food and what better way to encourage young people to eat a healthy school lunch than involve them in cooking it. We want to show pupils that food and cooking is a great skill for life and that it's better and easier to learn to cook from a young age. Some children don't know where basic raw ingredients come from but teaching them to cook helps pupils develop an interest in food. They will also understand the hard work that school cooks put in to create a delicious and healthy school meal every day.
The first step is to have a chat with your headteacher and other teachers about what cooking they already do in or after school and see if you can work together to create something different and fun today.
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Ideas for Schools
- Do you have a local restaurant nearby? You could invite the head chef in to do a cooking demonstration and give a talk about cooking. Pupils could vote on their favourite restaurant and that is the one to invite.
- Or perhaps you could arrange to visit a local hotel so pupils/students can see another kitchen at work. Another idea is to link it in with a careers evening in case some students are looking to work in the hotel and catering industry.
- Encourage pupils to design and decorate a menu that they would like served at lunchtime. The winning menu could be served today and the creator could be invited to have a free lunch with their best friends.
- Run a fruit and vegetable workshop where pupils can see how different fruit and vegetables are prepared. Try using some fruit and vegetables the pupils won't see on a daily basis. You could involve your fruit and vegetable supplier and ask him to source different and unusual items.
- Download and print the NSMW Recipe Guide and give one to each child to take home and show their parents. This also includes advice for parents on healthy lifestyles.
- Take pictures of dishes cooked today and upload them to Twitter. Use the hash tag #nsmw2011 so we can Tweet them from @NSMW.
