Cookery at Great Linford Primary School

 At Great Linford Primary School, we are passionate about teaching cookery skills and about nutrition. In our lessons, the children learn vital life skills which allows them to be safe and reduce any risks when using equipment or cooking. We teach them cutting techniques and how to use knives safely through practical demonstrations. Children will have the opportunity in each practical cooking lesson to practice the skills demonstrated.

​As part of our cooking lessons, we will also discuss theory and healthy eating. Children will create, make and evaluate their own recipes. Theory lessons look at building on existing knowledge of food groups and the effect of food on the body. 
Autumn 1 Cooking

In this first lesson, we started off with working on their knife skills, with this lesson we introduced how to use a knife correctly. All the Children enjoyed getting stuck in with the practical side of the lesson using the equipment and know its all in a safe environment.
Autumn 2
Week 1: Heath and Safety  
Week 2: Knife Skills 
Week 3: Pizzas
Week 4: Healthy Lifestyle 
Week 5: Ginger Bread men 
Well done to year 5's today with making their Ginger bread cookies. They used different cutters to create their own designs. Some followed on with decorating as well. 
Spring 2
Week 1: Health and Safety 
week 2: Knife Skills 
week 3: Pizzas 
week 4: Healthy Life style 
week 5: Cookies 
Theory Lessons​

As part of our theory-based lesson, we have looked at the different food groups where each child had to put their favourite meal into a food plate and put each ingredient into the correct Category of the food group wheel.  Also in this lesson, we looked at how each of the food groups helps use, what each do for are body. 

Protein-Your body uses protein to build and repair tissues. 
Carbohydrates- Provides your body with Energy. 

Cookery Club Blog
​Week 1
We have had a fantastic start to our cookery club this week. Led by Mrs Archer we have successfully made pancakes! We started by reading through our recipe sheets and quickly discovered that we would actually need to double up on all the ingredients to make enough pancakes for everyone. The children worked out the new measurements quickly. The children demonstrated an understanding of how to keep safe around the hot plates and were all very sensible and followed instructions. They showed good communication and cooperation skills, organising themselves and deciding who was going to add which ingredients to make the batter. The grown ups were very impressed with this teamwork. Everybody thoroughly enjoyed the end product and we even had a queue of teachers/staff at the door putting in their orders! On reflection, between mouthfuls, the children all agreed that they had enjoyed the session, and the best bit was……..eating the pancakes of course! One child said  ‘That’s the best pancake I’ve ever had’ and another said ‘ Next time we should have less lemon and more chocolate!’ Hey, you can’t win them all. Other than unsuccessfully capturing a mid air pancake flip on camera, it was a flip-tastic afternoon.
Week 2
Today in cookery we have made chicken fajitas, which were delicious! After gathering all our equipment and ingredients we started by cutting up the chicken and veg. It was explained to the children how to safely handle raw meat, that all other foods should be kept away from the raw chicken and it should have it’s own chopping board and knife due to the bacteria in it, and how this can cross contaminate onto other foods and surfaces. We then cooked the chicken thoroughly to ensure any harmful bacteria got killed off. Once we had added our veg and seasoning we were almost ready to dish up. The children showed off their cheese grating skills and we were good to go. Most children tried it and one or two who had never had it before will now be asking for fajitas at home! We ended the session by planning next week’s meal and writing a shopping list for it. This will hopefully help to develop organisation and pre-planning skills in our trainee chefs!