Cooking lessons

ePolitix.com Stakeholders comment on plans announced by children's secretary, Ed Balls, to make cookery lessons compulsory in secondary schools.

The initiative is part of the government's strategy to improve public health and is designed to help combat obesity in young people.

Stakeholder response: The PAT

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Philip Parkin, general secretary, said: "Children should be taught how to cook and about the importance of a balanced and nutritious diet. These are key life skills.

"However, the government needs to plan and fund this very carefully to make sure that the scheme is a recipe for success and not a half-baked idea that ends up being binned.

"Schools will be concerned about how cookery is to be squeezed into an already overcrowded curriculum, and about the purchase of the cookers and other equipment from already dwindling budgets.

"There are practical concerns about what will happen if children fail to bring in the necessary ingredients. It might be more sensible for schools to purchase the ingredients more cheaply in bulk and charge the costs for each child to parents, with the government meeting the costs of those on low incomes, rather than having an unwieldy system of parents buying small amounts to send in, with some being subsidised.

"I am also concerned about whether there will be enough trained teachers or higher level teaching assistants to meet demand."

Stakeholder response: The Prince's Foundation for Integrated Health

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Kim Lavely, chief executive, said: " Cookery lessons which teach young people about  healthy eating and food preparation can be engaging and give them skills that will set them up for life. These skills will be crucial if we are going to start to change young people's attitudes to food and ultimately their health and wellbeing.

"However, we hope the initiative announced by the Department for Children, Schools and Families today is not rolled out in isolation as a stand alone solution to the escalating obesity levels in school children in the UK.

"This must form part of a wider strategy that links healthy eating to being active and an awareness of their own health if we are going help young people avoid, and for some cases reduce, the effect of obesity on their long-term health. Parents, as well as the children, must understand the importance of a balanced diet as, after all, the majority of meals are consumed in the home not at school.

Despite good advice from cookery lessons, this initiative still doesn't get to the heart of the 'obesogenic environment' so clearly described in the recent Foresight report. Central is a culture that promotes a sedentary lifestyle, over-eating and makes high-fat highly processed food easily available, affordable and attractive. We hope to see further moves to address this bigger picture."

Stakeholder response: The NUT

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Steve Sinnott, general secretary,said: "At long last cooking has been made a core part of the curriculum. It is an essential life skill and should have been recognised as such in the recent secondary curriculum review.

"Ed Balls' welcome decision must be accompanied by a costed plan, not only for in house training, but providing new trained staff to teach cooking. Many schools need their equipment and facilities updating.  Teachers' judgements about how to include cooking in the curriculum must be respected."