Cooking in Primary Schools

[Foodteacher]

I am trying to find out how much practical cooking is happening in primary schools since the introduction of the new National Curriculum. Are schools managing to deliver it or is there a need for external help? Any thoughts/experiences please.

[Onykahonie]

If you mean would they buy in external help, then most state schools won't have the money! We don't have the time or facilities, but fitting it in the best we can.
I've been cooking with my class today. 30 kids, one mini oven! They've loved it though.

[Foodteacher]

Your day sounds brilliant. Thank you for replying to my post.
This time last year I was really excited about Food being compulsory in the new NC and hoped that there would be some support put in place for primary schools - but it looks like little support has been put in place. My colleague and I are trying to find a way to support primary schools that will fit in with school budgets (but also allow us to survive financially). We are 'testing the water' at the moment to see if we could provide PPA cover whilst we do practical or we can work alongside staff to provide training, take on risk assessments or hire out equipment and resource packages. We are investigating possibilities of external funding for this - but I just wanted to start a discussion to gather some feedback.

[pollypocket123]

Up to the teacher to organise parents to take groups for cooking at my school. I collect £1.00 per child per term and a few mums sort the recipes/ingredients. Each child gets 2 or 3 turns per year but a cooked item each week the cooking sessions run for. They love it.

[Onykahonie]

It's a great idea and some schools might be able to fund it, however, it seems that more and more schools use internal cover (HLTAs) for PPA etc.
If there was some sort of external funding, I'm sure that would help.