Last year seven Gateshead schools benefited from Food Standards Agency funding to run cookery clubs for pupils aged 11-14 years. The clubs catered for the particular interests and needs of the pupils involved, but all covered the main areas of:
Planning and preparing balanced meals
Reading and understanding food labelling
Food Hygiene
Effective shopping and food seasonality
Interested in setting up a club at your school?
Listed below are details of some of the free information and resources that can help you get started.
The What’s Cooking Clubs that ran in Gateshead Schools last year were led by Food Technology teachers with the help of volunteers and in some cases teaching assistants.
Two excellent guides, Let’s Cook and Cook-it, are designed to help staff and volunteers in primary and secondary schools to set up and run cookery clubs for pupils. The guides can be downloaded from the ContinYou website.
The Health Resource Centre based at Dunston Activitiy Centre has an excellent range of information and fun resources that can add interest to your club, contact Eileen.westthorpe@ghpct.nhs.uk
Community Nutrition Team based at Bensham Hospital can offer further advice and may be able to offer one of sessions or short courses tailored to the needs of your school and local community. Contact Stephanie.Wilkinson@ghnt.nhs.uk.
Finding funding for out of school activities can be difficult. Information to help identify available grants is included in this weblog, go to
A small amount of funding may be available this year from the Play Service to help fund clubs, we will be writing out to all schools over the next few weeks when the details are finalised.
ContinYou's 'What's Cooking Kids' follow up project which aims to develop 'Food Leaders' to deliver food, nutrition and cooking activities to children across the North East of England, is part of a successful bid by North East Strategic Health Authority for money from the Big Lottery Fund's Wellbeing programme. The aim is to build capacity in the North East through the development and training of 50 'Community Food Leaders' and also the development of 'Young Food Leaders'. These food leaders will in turn deliver food, nutrition and cooking activities to approximately 3,000 children aged 7-11 across the region. Gateshead Council has registered their interest in taking part in this project and will keep you informed of any further developments.
For further information or advice please contact Judith Paxton, Extended Schools Link Officer, on (0191) 433 6315, or Judithpaxton@gateshead.gov.uk
Whickham School has run a successful Cook-It Club. For more information download the Whickham School Cook It case study via the link below.
Download Whickham Cook It Case Study file