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Of course cooking should be taught in schools - both to boys and girls. Cooking is a vital life skill! Far too many young people live on take-aways and ready meals because they don't know how to cook, which is both expensive and nutritionally poor.

When I was at grammar school, in the 1960s, only the girls were taught cookery, and then it was just the basic pastry, cakes and cottage pies. But this was a good grounding, and has stood me in good stead for developing my skills.

Food and cooking should never have been removed fro the curriculum, learning how to cook is completely different to learning about food (just because you know why and how starch gelatinises doesn't mean you can make a white sauce!). I am about to run a course with 6th Formers with the sole aim of giving them the basic skills to cook for themselves when they go off the college or leave home. It was a shock to see how many of them didn't even go shopping (apart from their lunch), let alone cook for themselves. They have little idea of how much food costs, what they might need to buy week to week and the prospect of cooking something that they will want to eat leaves many of them blank.

Not enough children are being taught how to cook in the home, mainly because the home is too reliant on processed ready meals. Cooking has become an unusual activity, something to do at the weekend. The basics is all that is needed to give children the tools to develop cooking skills and they will then be more equipped to find their own way.

It would be great if the Food Programme could perhaps get some of the schleb chefs to help in the same way that they have been helping the Big Fish Fight.

Cooking in school has been a political football over the last couple of years - I've just written about the direct state of apprenticeships and craft bakery education and training at www.thecraftbaker.co.uk. There is no political will to do anything other than train factory workers and apprentice programmes are often exploiting young people by using them as a form of (very) cheap labour. In the face of large corporate enterprises demanding government train exclusively for factory process it is hard to feel optimistic about the potential for communities to teach kids themselves (without support or resources) - clearly school is the most obvious place for this to happen.

I went to a comprehensive school, which had previously been a technical high school. This meant we had lots of facilities for cooking, as the old technical highs were aimed at teaching less academic kids practical skills. The whole time I was at school we had cooking classes, and we used to make amazing things like hotpot, risotto, cakes and tarts. It is amazing what you can make in a one hour lesson! It was the best class we had in school, and is so important for people to learn - i have no problem now making whatever I want as I have a real understanding of the basics. My sister, who went to a Grammar School and never did cooking classes is still hopeless at cooking and marvels at the things that I create. I have a friend who teaches basic skills to students with behaviour problems, and she has found that cooking lessons really help the kids development as it gives the kids confidence to make something successfully, but also she can use it to teach the basics of other subjects ie maths (weighing, doubling up ingredients etc, converting recipes), or science (boiling, freezing etc). Quite a lot of her students loved the cooking classes so much they have gone on to study to be chefs, which is great!

I was lucky to have someone who started to teach me to cook when I was aged 8 just by using basic pkt mix for cakes. I did cookery in school and can follow instructions from any cookery book in both old oz and pounds or in kg. I agree auderyfoode that people have no clue how to buy or cook food. I have worked with woman in there 20's who have told me mammy makes my dinner as I can't cook. If you know the basics you can work from there but you need someone to show you this and answer your questions. The 6th formers having someone teaching them to cook are very lucky but it sad to think that at 17 and 18 years of age they can't cook.

Im a Director of a social enterprise that teaches cookery in both primary and secondary schools in Liverpool. Besides the lack of facilities in schools what is also apparent is that some teachers with the responsibility for cookery do not have the relevant skills and this should also be considered as part of the problem.
Our work involves working with children, teachers and parents and we have had amazing success in changing attitudes and behaviours regarding cookery, food knowledge and how these skills and knowledge are used in the home - which for us is the focus. Behind our mission which is - teaching everyone to cook - the aim is make sure the food that children and their parents are taught to cook is the very same food they will want to cook at home - making sure it fits budgets and tastes. By starting with what people will eat you have every chance of making sure the teaching 'sticks'.

I would like to know why the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ has so little in the way of programs concerning food, cooking and nutrition on Radio 4. Look at the array of food programs on the TV, and all we have regularly on Radio 4 is the fantastic Food Programme, a mere 25 minutes a week. Shameful!

I believe that this is a fundamental skill needed for people to be able to provide for themselves. It allows people much more choice in what they eat and how healthy their diet is. Cooking from scratch is really the only time you know exactly what is in your food. I've cooked all my adult life, and am able to provide nutritious, tasty meals for my children even when on a low budget.

My 13 year old son has done some great cooking at secondary school, but after choosing his GCSEs' that's it-no more cookery tuition. Will 3 years really be enough to give him the confidence to cook for life?

I really enjoyed my cookery classes at school and was disappointed that my children, now in their late twenties and early thirties never really got this opportunity. I think that the ability to cook healthy food is an essential life skill and everyone should learn at least the basics. Also, many children who don't shine at games or maths will find they have the organisational skill, budgeting ability and patience necessary to produce tasty food. Surely this will lift their confidence in other subjects.

I am a ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Economics teacher then I became a Food Technology teacher. Now it seems that I am to be a catering and hospitality teacher though I have never worked in the food or catering industries. I chose to study ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Economics at college because I wanted to teach and I wanted to teach a practical subject. So I'm basically teaching a subject now for which I am not qualified and have had no in-service training. Over the years I have seen the subject go from an activity which was useful to all children to something which lacks knowledge and skills. I am almost old enough to see the subject come full circle back to cookery and no more.
There are some points which are relevant from the teacher's point of view:
1) it is utterly utterly exhausting to teach up to five lessons of practical cookery every day; lessons which only last one hour
2) parents are expected to provide the ingredients and if they don't like what is being cooked then the children won't cook. I'm talking about fresh vegetables nothing more exotic than carrots
3) if children don't like what has been set to cook, then they will conveniently forget to bring ingredients and then the teacher has to set other work which the children will resent doing and so they will create trouble in the class. The teacher will not know the course of the lesson until the students arrive. Children will forget to bring an ovenproof container when they are cooking, say, apple crumble (with wholemeal flour, if parents have got it). So, that becomes another problem for the teacher to solve. Other subjects do not have such demands like this.
4) the management of the school will always send the low ability to cookery and dissuade the brighter students from taking the subject. The management always quibble about how expensive the subject is.
5) food technology is demoralising as it demands students to cook the same product several times with little variations each time. So a student could get an A* having only cooked cakes. Coursework is pointless whereas the theory of nutrition is vital which means writing about.
6) Often equipment is faulty and takes an age to get sorted. If ovens don't heat up properly, then baking takes so much longer to cook which means some baking going into the next lesson or into the teacher's break (they might even have to do a duty) or lunch-time.
7) The teacher becomes the cleaner as well. What does the teacher do with the dirty tea towels and cloths if a lesson is last thing on a Friday afternoon - take them home to wash. I have on occasions.
8) The class sizes are too big, but management do not understand the constraints - 25 Year 9s in a room designed for 18 does not work.
Children should be taught how to cook at home, but in many cases that does not happen. Children should be taught how to cook at school, but it really is against all the odds. I love teaching cookery, though now only part-time because of the reasons given above, but it is exhausting to teach and treated as inferior in many schools. Teaching Food has become more theoretically, because of exam syllabuses, exhausting for teachers and expensive and troublesome for parents. Teaching cookery in schools can only be successful if teachers are given enough lesson time, proper working equipment, ingredients supplied by school, trained technicians who don't think they are the teacher, and supportive management who care about children rather than targets.

We all need to eat. Unlike some subjects taught at schools, for which in later life we might well have no use, learning to cook gives us not only an invaluable life skill, but a better understanding of what goes into the food we eat - and therefore what is unnecessary, and perhaps even unhealthy.

Unsurprisingly, we at the RealBreadCampaign.org, feel that baking bread should be one of the skills taught. In a country where wrapped factory loaves have been ubiquitous for several generations, many children grow up in households where there is little to no experience or even knowledge of bread making. In this environment, generally it is not possible to leave teaching about such a fundamental element of life to the discretion of parents.

We are, therefore, running two schemes - Bake Your Lawn and Lessons in Loaf - to help teachers and parents share the joy of Real Bread with children, and help them find out that Real bread begins life in a field, not a factory.

I am a primary school teacher and we teach cooking as part of DT, totally agree cookery lessons should be complulsory in secondary schools, but I also feel strongly about obese children and unhealthy children and I think the only way to positively prevent children eating junk food is to stop packed lunches (which all too often include junk food) and make school dinners compulsory, they are by far the healthy option these days.

2 items should be addressed here - whether to have cookery lessons compulsory or not, but in addition (if cookery is made compulsory), what should be taught... At the start of my tuition in a Herts secondary school, our 1st cookery lesson was on making fresh milkshakes where we were asked to buy and supply the vital ingredients for the following lesson... nesquick and milk (I kid you not – it went downhill from there too!) :(

Here in Finland where I live now, schools teach cookery, washing, ironing – everything for young ‘uns to live self sufficiently. It’d be nice to see the UK adopt this idea (again?) too in my opinion. :)
- Alex

When I was appointed Headmistress of a very successful Grammar School in the 70's, one of my top priorities was to update a ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Economics department which was the most neglected department in the school. I was given the means by the LEA to build three new state of the art D.S rooms. The Head of Department responded by creating a department that produced excellent examination results,but more important, a great enthusism for cooking. When we later re-organised to be a comprehensive school,every girl in the school learned to make pastry and bread. our policy was that at home the pupils might buy bread and frozen pastry, but at school they would experience the joy of making pastry and bread. I will never forget the joy on the faces of the first year "remedial" class as they proudly showed me their freshly made loaves.

Cooking should be taught in schools to give children a better aprieciation of the food that they eat. But it should also teach children where food originates from and what foods are in season. I learnt alot about food at school more than I did at home and since the from t.v. and recipe books, and am now a competent cook, but not tidy and enjoy cooking. Living on the continent my children haven't had the joy of compulsory cooking lessons, my youngest daughter chose as a last resort cookery and serving for her last two years as there was no other course available to her, but learnt in my mind very little. By the age she left school I could fillet a fish (which I can still do at a push)bhut she can't. I also learnt not to be scared of trying new recipes or techiques. But then again I did go to the same secondary school as Gary Rhodes so maybe we were just lucky with our Cookery Teachers considering he was two years behind me when he took cookery lessons there.

I strongly believe all children should have cooking at school. I did! It is a necessary skill everyone need to know how to use.
I've used the recipes for children from the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ GoodFood magazine with my grandchildren. They love cooking! Thankfully their father also enjoys cooking and does the weekend meal so they are learning by example. But learning at school would teach them different methods.

Being over 60 and going to a girls only school our domestic science class not only taught us to cook but how to wash (without a machine)and iron. My son joined the services at 16 (Royal Marine) so he irons better than me. In a world that all sex's are equal I think to teach even the basic cooking skills and general home economics to all childen would help them.

I'm from the USA, so I'm not speaking specifically about the British context.

I think that a course (or courses?) on practical living should be required, which would include, in addition to cooking, finance and budgeting, basic home maintenance, insurance, employment issues (finding a job, etc.), interpersonal and family issues.

Most of education is either theoretical or career-oriented, but some personal life studies, which would include cooking, would be helpful, I think, for the well-being of individuals and as a result, of the broader society.

I do *not* think that cookery lessons should be compulsory in schools; it is far more important to ensure children are literate and numerate! There are plenty of easy cookery books and videos available for anyone able to read and follow clear instructions. Basic cooking, using simple, fresh ingredients, does not require hours in some "domestic science" room learning how to cook unhealthy, high-fat, high-sugar bakery products or fatty puddings. What children do need to be taught is how to *choose* healthy products in the first place. This can be done ideally at the butchers' and greengrocers' shops, but otherwise through watching videos.

I believe that cooking is a fundamental survival skill necessary for teaching good nutrition and to teach the pupils how to take care of their long term health regardless of gender. In today's mad rush life style too many families have lost the art of sitting down to a home cooked meal, communicating as a group, spending half an hour engaged in each others lives. This may seem a stretch but too many families settle for microwave or take away meals eaten in front of the telly with no communication, no connections between family members made or strengthened.
Learning to cook at school encourages children to enjoy cooking to find it a pleasure rather a chore. With simple health and safety of the correct storage and cooking of foods being to taught in tandem can avoid food poisoning.
Without teaching the pupils how to cook how will we discover the next Ramsey or Smith? how will the shy / non-academic pupil find a passion to give shape and purpose to attending school.
Teaching cooking is so much more than just how to boil water .. it will help shape our nations childrens' health. So bring it back!

We have the same issues in Ireland - learning to cook/bake is not deemed to be important anymore and yet our governments are giving out about the level of obesity caused by fastfoods etc, and the cost in Health to the taxpayer. Simple steps like ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Economics, Domestic Science - call it what you will - is so important for our children. It is a life skill that can be taken anywhere in the world, using fresh local products. But lets not forget that like alot of other things in life we cannot expect our education system to do 100% of our childs learning. It should start at home. It is so true that if you get your child involved preparing food they will understand that dinner doesn't come from the freezer but freshly prepared and tastes much better. They also get the satisfaction that they made something practical that can be shared. I learnt to cook from a very early age and now I love teaching my own daughter Molly who is now 10 and competent and capable of making scones and bread on her own - I just have to put them into the oven and take them out!! Another benefit it quality time and fun with my daughter. Now I am teaching her how to knit - another life skill I learned from my mother and aunt.

³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Ec was one of my favourite classes at school!! It was probably the most popular lessons we had! We only got to go once a week and cooking was only for one term (woodwork and sewing were a term each too). We had a vegetarian teacher (which at the time was unusual and we weren't overly keen about) but we did learn about vegetarian cooking and also adapting recipes to make them non-vege! - Sounds odd now, but back then in NZ vegetarian wasn't really done! We learnt how to cook meals - soups, stirfry, mexican, indian and much more. I still even use some of the recipes now! We also had to cook the meal ourselves for our family sometime that week as homework - it gave us a sense of achievement and responsibility as well, not to mention the ability to cook quick and easy meals! It astounds me the number of people who can't cook for themselves (my brother has the ability to find new girlfriends who can't even boil an egg!) Ready Meals in the UK, are easy and cheap (relative to other countries), parents are working and too tired to cook, skills aren't being passed down to the next generation(s) which is scary - and highlights where schools and the education system should step in!! Kids should be taught to cook when they are 10-12, and yes, I think it should be compulsory!

School is the best place to begin to learn how to cook, which can be combined with learning nutrition in a fun way. I think our obesity epidemic has be fuelled (pardon the pun!) because two generations have not been taught the basics and so little cooking is done within some families. Children do not learn at home. Using food hygiene and perhaps aiming towards a certifiate woudl also be useful.

As many young people can’t cook today I think it’s important that cooking became compulsory in schools and not only for girls. Look at our master chefs most of them are men.
I am now 60+ and I find myself referring back to my schools cookery books now and then.
It is an important skill and we ought to teach our children how to plan and use a kitchen, not just how to heat a pizza in the micro.

I fervently believe that knowledge of food and the cooking of it is a basic life skill which must be taught in schools. Time was found in school curriculums many years ago, so why not now? It seems to me that the correlation between obesity and some other health problems and the lack of food knowledge and cooking skills is so obvious that I cannot understand why commonsense cannot prevail to return these vital subjects to the curriculum. Good health is so important and enables us all to live fuller, happier and more useful lives.

My daughter, now 13, is a dab hand at baking and cooking and is being held back at school because other pupils don't even have the basic skills. I'm not blaming the parents but the education system. Cooking should be compulsary to boys and girls even if it's just the basics. It is all too easy to open a jar or roll out ready made pastry these days.

Both my girls did cooking at school (two different schools), and from my point of view it was the most painful process ever. Talk about the perfect way to put someone off eating decent stuff for life!

The trouble is that at school they don't teach cooking at all really. What you get is some lame brained recipe surrounded by a ton of facts that no one is interested in.

They learned that Fricassee is a fried chicken dish with a pie crust on top or mashed potato on top. (No, that is called a PIE!)

They learned how nutrition is calculated in the manufacturing process.

They learned about artificial preservatives.

One of them had to cook pizza. Since I regularly make pizza at home, I took her through how the "mamas" ccok them in Napoli.

We made the dough with 00 grade pizza/pasta flour. Once raised we put it into balls and let it stand a while. Then rolled out the dough and immediately put on a topping of rich tomato purée.

We tore up some strips of mozzarella and put that on top with lots of torn basil leaves. Then STRAIGHT into the oven at a seriously high temperature. Here is the teacher's thoughts:

1. The basil will burn (er ... I think you will find it is meant to)
2. You should have let the base rise so it is thick and fluffy (Sorry, but have you ever eaten a proper pizza?)
3. You should cook it at a lower heat. (What the hell are you trying to make? Waffles?)

In exasperation I sent the teacher an article about the pizzeria in Naples that had won the coverted best pizzeria prize several times. It showed thin pizzas (un proved) being put into an oven that was so hot (875°F) that they cooked in about 2 minutes - to perfection. And they had lots of burnt basil on top!

I taught how to cook pizza to a pile of 11 year olds many years ago. By the end of the lesson there was flour everywhere (they also got to learn how to use the huge school vacuum cleaner), the oven was in melt down and there was tomato puree stuck to the ceiling.

But at day's end there was a row of 30 perfect Italian Margherita pizzas, hot and ready for the parents to eat then and there when they arrived to collect their little darlings (and not a pineapple cube or lump of chicken tikka in sight). The kids stood proudly by their pizzas, grins all over their faces. Most of the parents had never had a proper pizza before, just the rubbish you get at Pizza Hut. They loved them - genuinly. One parent told me that she normally feared trying anything her kid cooked at school. Another that her child hated cooking, hated tomatoes, hated good cheese and hated anything that was not a waxy cheese burger bought from a take-away van. There was her child, huge grin, stuffing his face with beautiful, home cooked pizza - he even put some extra fresh basil on top and ate that too.

That was 15 years ago - my children from back then (I have had two batches!) still are in contact with their friends and you know what? They still all cook home made pizza.

Food cooking and good food knowlege can be taught as long as you stick to some very rigid principles:

• Leave the science OUT of the mix
• Don't waffle on about manufacturing
• Don't try and teach about nutrition.
• And get a teacher who knows what he/she is talking about and thinks that her lessons should be outrageous.

If you make it fun, always use the PROPER ingredients, make sure your food is stuffed with flavour, and give the kids a shock once in a while (you should have seen the kids at a garden birthday party challenging each other to eat mussels and chomp on fried soft shell baby crabs - shell and all!), then the idea of nutrition, eating fresh food and a balanced diet will fall into place anyway. If they think that a tomato salad dressed with a sprinkling of olive oil, some anchovy fillets and black pepper is wonderful, then that is what they will eat.

The trouble is that schools never taught it like that when I was a kid in the 60s and they don't teach it like that now. Cooking and academia should never be in the same recipe!

salemslot wrote:

My daughter, now 13, is a dab hand at baking and cooking and is being held back at school because other pupils don't even have the basic skills. I'm not blaming the parents but the education system.

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Er, no, I would blame the parents.

I assume you daughter cooks because you do. Good cooking is passed down through generations - but so is bad cooking. If you make wonderful salads or delicious roast beef, then so will your offspring. If you make gravy from bisto and chuck all those lovely meat juices down the plug hole, then so will your child.

The best thing for schools to do is to run classes in the evening teaching the parents how to cook. If the kids are seeing great food (and it can be great CHEAP food too) at home as well as being taught fun cooking at school, then the message will sink in. If the parents can't be bothered, then the lessons learned at school will soon fade and die.

Of course, cookery should be complusory in schools. I am a prime example of a child who grew up in a household where cooking and food were regarded only as a necessary evil required to stay alive. I learned to cook in school, enjoyed the results so much so that I went on to train as a Domestic Science Teacher. Later I expanded my culinary skills and developed an interest in many different styles. In a time when so many people are hard pushed financially it is a skill which enables families to eat well on a budget. For good health, nourishing food is an essential. I also think this should be taught hand in hand with basic nutrition as it requires both before it becomes truly useful in later life. I also agree with the comment that both boys and girls should be taught this subject particularly as the number of single households are on the increase and also because many young people are forced to leave home quite young either for work or for further eduction.

yes without a doubt cooking should be taught in schools especially as it encompasses so many other subjects as well!It is also an easier way to see practical ways to help the environment.

It is essential that food is taught in school. Many parents are part of the lost generation for health and nutrition and are unable to pass on this essential information to children. Junk food, fast food, health food, low salt, low fat, low calorie. There has never been a greater need for food in the curriculum.

Yes, cooking should definitely be taught in schools. As an ex-headteacher I can tell you that we now have families who do not know how to cook. Food is either convenience or take-away. It is an uphill struggle trying to teach about a healthy diet when neither children nor their parents will eat vegetables and do not know how to cook them.
At my school we ran a gardening club, grew the veg then cooked it and ate it, but there was often resistance to the eating of it. The children loved the growing and the cooking.
My own mum was a wartime cook, trying her best to feed a family on very little. It was thanks to cookery classes when I was a teenager at school that I learned about apple pie, suet pudding and meat and two veg.No-one. either in my family or in my school was fat. It was just unknown, but we were all hungry.

All this user's posts have been removed.Why?

A generation or two who cannot cook are the customers for an industry beloved by Mrs. Thatcher, the Added Value Industry.....a simple example, of their product, the polythene packaged, pre-washed, pre-chopped vegetable. The recipe book has been supplanted by "Display until","Best before" and "Use by" notices on the bags.