Justin Tomlinson MP today joined students and parents at Haydonleigh Primary School, 'Let's get cooking' club.
Now in the fourth year of a £20 million, five year Lottery funded programme, there are nearly 4,000 school–based let’s get cooking clubs in every local authority across England, with over 400 clubs based in London. So far more than 750,000 people have developed their cooking skills through the programme. Which is on track to achieve its target of teaching new cooking skills to more than 1,1 million people by October 2012.
The down to earth and immensely practical chef and food writer Prue Leith CBE was instrumental in establishing the Let’s Get cooking model and was able to draw on her experiences of running her own cookery schools to really help get the model right.
Mainly held after school the Let’s Get Cooking clubs give children and non cooking parents of all ages the skills and the confidence to cook tasty and nutritious meals from scratch. The network of clubs involve the wider community and encourage children and young people to cook at home.
Let’s Get Cooking is funded by the BIG Lottery Fund and led by the School Food Trust in partnership with the Prince’s Trust, Business in the Community and Magic Outcomes .
Let's Get Cooking resources include a Start-Up pack for each club, wall charts, food safety advice, child-friendly versions of recipes, a termly activity and newsletter, and much more. All clubs have their own club page on the website and have access to downloadable resources and advice.
Justin Tomlinson MP, "In Parliament I have been raising the need to encourage more schools to offer young children the chance to learn basic cookery skills, so essential for later in life. The 'Let's Get Cooking' clubs have been an excellent catalyst for driving this forward and I really enjoyed the opportunity to see first hand the benefits of this work at Haydonleigh Primary School, where the children and parents really enjoyed the cookery session."
