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07 March 2025
We work with local authorities across the UK to make good food the norm, supporting schools nurseries and caterers to serve up freshly prepared food and get people connected with where food comes from. One part of this is running training sessions for teachers and school staff so that they can learn new skills to bring back to their school and pass on to pupils.
Today at the Freer Centre in Wigston, Leicestershire, teachers and staff from local schools have gathered to learn about growing and cooking good food. This is part of our Food for Life Leicestershire programme, commissioned by Leicestershire County Council, which works with schools, nurseries and caterers to make good food accessible and available.
Most of those attending today haven’t been to Food for Life training before, so the day begins slowly with plenty of refreshments and time to chat. These sessions aren’t just a way to learn new skills, but an opportunity to bring people together to share experiences and knowledge from their good food journey.
After hearing about how cooking and growing fit into the Food for Life Schools Award framework, participants begin by learning how to make Aloo Tikki, a spiced potato patty. Whilst cooking, we discuss food hygiene, how to set a classroom up for a cooking activity, and how to include those with allergies. As well as following a recipe, participants also create their own dips out of the ingredients available – yoghurt, mint, lime and coriander to much delight when everyone tries the Aloo Tikka with their own dips at the end.
Making food from scratch gets us talking about ultra-processed food and how we can make swaps to eating more freshly prepared and minimally processed food. Having an arsenal of simple, everyday recipes in your back pocket is a great way to eat more whole foods, and now the Aloo Tikka can be one for everyone here today.
At lunch, everyone enjoys chatting and there’s lots of conversations happening between different schools as they share ideas and identify shared problems. Participants enjoy the food they made this morning as well as bread, crackers, cheese, vegetables and dips.
In the afternoon, we talk about farm links, an important part of the Food for Life Schools Award. Whether a school is able to visit a farm in person or organise a virtual visit, connecting with the people who grow and produce our food is a vital understanding for children to make. As well as going through the how-to of arranging a visit, we also share a list of farmers and food producers they can contact in Leicestershire.
Following this, they cast their minds back to this morning’s recipe as they learn how to grow the ingredients needed for it. Growing food is a crucial part of Food for Life’s ethos, and demonstrating how simple it can be to grow something edible, no matter how much space or experience you have, is how we make it as accessible as possible. Today, the focus is on potatoes, spring onions and coriander.
First, we look at growing cards and discuss when each one should be planted to ensure they’re ready to harvest at the same time during term time. Then, participants learn how to make seed tape using spring onion seeds. Seed tape is a great way to measure out the distance between seeds, and one teacher remarks that pupils are likely to have an easier time seeing what they’ve planted using seed tape. They also made paper pots to plant coriander in, with teachers pointing out this activity is beneficial for developing fine motor skills children. Lots of the activities done today can be linked with other areas of the curriculum, whether that’s developing maths skills by counting seeds or business skills by selling plants at a school fete.
After a busy and inspiring day, participants leave feeling more confident in being able to support a positive food environment within their school and organise their own growing and cooking activities. They don’t leave empty handed either, as well as taking their seed tape and paper pots they also go away with a variety of resources to support their good journey, including a Food for Life Schools Award planning sheet, information on funded opportunities and further training, and information on upcoming campaigns to get involved with for further free resources and support.