Chefs in Schools charity aims to intrigue, excite and thereby educate children about food production and healthy eating
Six-year-old Zuriel stood in the school lunch queue and looked at the vegetable noodles, steaming on the counter. “I don’t want to eat that,” he murmured. “There are things in it I’ve never tasted before.”
Seven-year-old Ali, standing nearby, overheard. Bursting with pride and eager to reassure, he exclaimed: “But I cooked it this morning. The vegetables are really fun and exciting. It’s delicious.” He looked into Zuriel’s eyes. “Honestly.”
Cae Tan CSA, a community-supported agriculture project on the Gower peninsula in Wales, teaches pupils from primary schools in areas of high deprivation how to grow vegetables. They winnow and grind the wheat to flour, then have a celebration day where they bake pizzas for the whole school in a wood-fired oven.
Nightingale community academy in south London has an award-winning working farm that supplies meat to the Temper restaurant in Soho, London.
Woodmansterne school in Lambeth teaches GCSE-level cookery to years 10 and 12 with the assistance of Leith’s cookery college.
Totteridge academy’s collaboration with Grow Farm, on the school site, means children learn about topsoil, seasonality and harvesting food as part of their curriculum.
Bealings primary school in Suffolk has on-site polytunnels, a pizza oven, and the children recently spent a day learning about regenerative farming in the fields behind the nearby Grange Farm shop.
