A new £3.3m package to recruit specialist teaching assistants and train staff to run practical cooking lessons has been announced along with £53m given to secondary schools for new cooking facilities – with the aim of getting pupils preparing meals at home and pave the way for compulsory practical classes in secondary schools from 2011.
The Secretary of State confirmed that he is already working with Aldi and Asda, while holding discussions with other major supermarkets, to promote the Government’s Real Meals cookbook and get families cooking together – but he said the whole supermarket and food industry had a vital role to play.
He said equipping children with basic cooking skills for life was central to combating obesity. Experts say without any intervention, 90 percent of today’s children could be overweight or obese and at risk from serious diseases by 2050.
He also set out the next steps in training up a new generation of skilled and motivated staff to run practical cooking classes and building top class new facilities – to redress the exodus of home economics teachers when many schools stopped classes in the 1970s and 1980s.
The full £56.3m package is:
• £2.1m new investment over the next two years to recruit and train 750 specialist higher-level teaching assistants to help run classes;
• £1.2m for a new continuous professional development programme for train 400 existing teachers to teach practical cooking classes – to increase the number of teachers trained to deliver food technology;
• £53m for new practical cooking spaces in schools – with £300,000 grants each over the next two years for 170 secondary schools. It is the first tranche of funding from the £150m announced in September 2008 for 515 secondary schools which have no facilities at present – the Government is writing to local authorities today to urge them to bid for the remaining schools.
The announcement follows ministers’ confirmation in January last year that from 2011, food technology lessons, including hands-on practical cooking lessons, will be compulsory for every 11 to 14-year-old – the first time that cooking has ever been compulsory in schools. They also committed £2.5 million a year to cover or subsidise the cost of cooking ingredients for children on free school meals.
Last September, the government also announced £150 million ringfenced capital investment to build food technology teaching areas in secondary schools currently without facilities and £750,000 specifically to recruit and train 800 new food technology teachers.
Over 350,000 Real Meal cookbooks, including healthy versions of old favourites from spaghetti bolognese to lamb rogan josh, have now been distributed to free to 11-year-olds since the cookbook was published in September.
The Government launched the Change4Life movement last month. Through Change4Life, the Government is aiming to start a lifestyle revolution to help everyone eat more healthily and be more active.
It is part of the Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives strategy published in January 2008 which aims to reduce the proportion of overweight and obese children to 2000 levels over the next 12 years.
• The Change4Life movement launched on 3 January with the aim to help everyone eat well, move more and live longer. For more information on Change4Life visit http://www.nhs.uk/Change4Life or call 0300 123 3434.
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