PREPARATIONS for a lesson has never been met with so much enthusiasm at King’s Caple primary school where children were making their own tuck shop snacks.

The cookery class that helps liven up basic maths, english and science is proving a wholesome experience with yoghurt and raisin muffin and cheesy herb bread on the breaktime tariff.

Young hands weighed and measured, stirred and beat the ingredients and the unlikely looking muffins and cheesy bread began to take shape. Cookery has been introduced into the curriculum to meet the national healthy schools programme by headteacher, Gill Thompson, who said that cookery involves an element of all the basics like reading, measuring foods and also taught the children interactive social skills.

“Children love to cook and love to get involved. They make everything from scratch so they have to measure out the flour and beat the eggs. They need to be able to tell the time and work out how long things have to be baked for and follow instructions.This is a good way of helping them to get to know healthy foods, where it comes from. It also gives them the opportunity to taste something new to them,” she said.

King’s Caple is gaining itself quite a reputation for becoming a ‘school community’ where everyone works together on practical subjects wholeheartedly. Along with the cooking, there’s a gardening plot where the children learn to look after plants and grow their own herbs and vegetables.

The school has already gained its Gold Healthy School award and has four young ambassadors who have given talks to other schools in Herefordshire. It is a silver eco school and working towards the green flag “Healthy eating is only part of the whole approach we take. We have used some of the herbs today from our own garden so they can see where it all comes from but we’ve also adopted a farmer who has come to the school to give talks.

He has invited the children to his fruit farm and sent in some of the fruit juice he produces for them to sell in their tuck shop. He has also helped make bird boxes with the children,” she said.

The national healthy school programme involves working with children and young people, parents, school staff and the whole school community which teaches personal, social and health education, healthy eating, physical activity and emotional health and welbeing.

If you’d like to share your opinion about healthy food, share your recipes or let us have your suggestions for other healthy actiivites that parents could do at home, let us know.

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