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North East events, press articles and case studies

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) commissioned ContinYou to work with every local authority in the North East of England to roll out What's Cooking? with 100 clubs across the region.

The programme ran from 1 September 2006 to 31 August 2007, for further information on the work in the North East use the links below:

Events

North East legacy day

The What's Cooking? legacy event took place on Tuesday, July 10 at the Stadium of Light football ground in Sunderland.

The event celebrated the excellent work that has been done in local authorities, and looked at ways of working that will enable clubs to consider continuing the sessions – and we all had fun together!

Each local authority was given the opportunity to showcase and celebrate the wonderful work that has taken place in their authority and clubs by offering displays and/or short presentations throughout the day.

Download PowerPoint presentations by:

 'Lets cook' session

The highlight of the day was the 'Let's cook' session, where young people from South Tyneside and Sunderland prepared a two-course meal with the support of: David Hall, Expo Chef and Masterchef Goes Large; and David Malone, Wansbeck Real Food, Northumberland.

Congratulations to the young people from Sunderland and South Tyneside whose menus were chosen by David Hall (Expo Chef and Masterchef Goes Large) and David Malone (Wansbeck Real Food, Northumberland) to prepare and cook on the day.

Following a tasting session by the panel, as well as some members of the audience, Sunderland was voted the overall winner and South Tyneside the runners-up.

North East development days

Two people working on a large document at one of the development days

Two women working together at a development day

Development days were held in September 2006 for clubs/authorities running Cook-it! clubs (now known as What's Cooking? clubs):

  • 19 September at Middlesbrough FC for clubs in Tees Valley and Durham
  • 20 September at The Prestige Hotel for clubs in Tyne and Wear.

Download presentations from these two days:

 Press cuttings, releases and articles

Case studies

The Cook-it! (What's Cooking?) blog

Lesley Gibbin, St Peter’s Catholic College of Maths and Computing, Redcar and Cleveland

Cook-it! Club Blog

I started preparing a blog from week one of our Cook-it! club. There are fourteen Year 7 students who participate in activities each Thursday evening after school. The blog is designed to hold all the recipes and activities the students have been involved in, and this informs other staff member and their families about what the Cook-it! club involves. Students can access the recipes they have made and then try to make them at home. The blog is now linked to our website so that anyone who looks at the website can have easy access to it. It was easy to produce and updating it each week is quite an easy task. You start by going to www.blogger.com/start and this leads you to the welcome screen. Then follow the easy steps – good luck!

Blogger

Click onto 'new blogger' and then it should all be self explanatory. Once you have registered you then become an old blogger. 

Manor College of Technology, Hartlepool

Jo Mclaughlin, Assistant SENCO

Manor College Cook-it! club runs mainly on Mondays 3.30 to 4-.30pm. It is so popular with the students that we often carry on on other nights in the homework club!

We have purchased a smoothie maker, a lean mean grilling machine and a microwave and, as we do not have access to a cookery room, on an evening we work in a classroom.

The pupils have been through a food hygiene programme, and have also been shopping to learn budgeting skills. 

They all have the opportunity to make their own healthy snacks, such as healthy wraps, seeded bread toasties, fruit and veg smoothies, and other healthy options.

It is interesting to see them try foods they thought they would not like, only to discover that they do like them after all!!

'Today I learnt how to cook jacket potatoes. It is healthy. You can learn a lot. Go on try it!' Katie, aged 11

'[The] club has helped me to: make healthy wraps, try seeds and smoothies, shown me how to use a smoothie machine and shown how seeds and nuts can affect the body.' Robyn Cummings, aged 13

Cooking for Life in South Tyneside (Dunn Street School, St Matthews RC Primary School, Mortimer Comprehensive School, Bedes Sure Start, Ridgeway Primary School)

Joyce Greely

2 girls in aprons holding plates of pizzas

We have had 100 per cent attendance so far at our project. Every week ten parents and ten children attend. We make a two-course meal and sit down to eat the meal together at nicely dressed tables.

We made pizzas (from fresh ingredients) last week with a crunchy salad and potato wedges, followed by a banana split for dessert.

We make our own pizza bases and bolognese sauce and have a good selection of toppings. Potato wedges are a very low fat alternative to chips. We cost the meal out each week and for two huge pieces of pizza, salad, potato wedges and a banana split the meal cost £1.09 per person. This does not take into account second helpings and take-away samples for the family, so you could almost halve that cost.  

South Tyneside's What's Cooking? Newsletters

Joanna Lajmi, South Tyneside

South Tyneside have produced What's Cooking? newsletters to share all the wonderful work that is happening in clubs across South Tyneside. Download a copy now.

Download South Tyneside's What's Cooking? March 2007 Newsletter (PDF file, 1 MB)

Download South Tyneside's What's Cooking? May 2007 Newsletter (PDF file, 211 KB)

Download South Tyneside's What's Cooking? August 2007 Newsletter (PDF file, 1.14 MB)

St Benet Biscop's RC High School, Northumberland

Lyn Horton, Extended Services Co-ordinator

Our What’s Cooking? club ran over the summer holidays aimed at year 8’s from each of the 3 feeder middle schools. 16 young people attended every Wednesday throughout the summer holidays.

The aim was to break down any foreseeable barriers of young people entering the high school and gain a holistic approach to health and well-being. By the end of the summer session all the young people had bonded, working well together.  They had a sound knowledge of the school site and this was evident on their first day in September 06.

In addition, they managed to produce a three course healthy meal to invited members of their family ‘Cook for Royalty’ which meant that we could start to build relationships and participation with the parents. Awards and wooden spoons were given out. Other sessions we ran included:

  • Price is Right – produce marked with stars and members asked to guess what the price was – the nearest one to the answer won that produce for the ‘Cook for Royalty’.
  • Get the plate right! – a treasure hunt with clues around the school site (clues are based on health and where the subjects buildings are).
  • Supermarket Sweep – given a list of ingredients with a specific target i.e. low in salt, fat or more fibre.  They were then given a budget of £10 per couple and 30 minutes to get what they need within their challenge.  A lot of discussion and looking at food labels happened here!  They then had to return to school and cook using the ingredients they had bought.
  • Alternative sports day - we got together with the other year 8’s attending a week long summer school and had an afternoon of sports challenges including a 10-legged race, egg and spoon race, obstacle course etc.  This gave them an opportunity to meet up with other year 8s (some of whom they already knew and others never met) and have fun.
  • Main course - What’s in a burger?  The fat and meat content etc.  They then were given 4 different types of mince, pork, beef, turkey and quorn and a variety of ingredients they could use i.e. nuts, spices, spinach, feta cheese etc.  We got an excellent variety of burgers and they were judged by the sports co-ordinators.

What's Cooking? Affirmation at Every Child: School Food Matters Conference in the North East

Stadium of Light, 17 May 2007

Tony Apicella, Business Development Manager attended the conference, organised by Public Health North East and supported by School Food Trust. Anthony Kirkbride along with 13 young Middlesbrough What's Cooking? club members also attended supported by Radiowaves.

Prue Leith was the keynote speaker to an audience of over 150 headteachers, local authority caterers and local and regional strategic staff. In her keynote speech, Prue complimented the North East on the innovative work that they were involved in and added that she and the trust were extremely impressed with the What's Cooking? work being done in the 91 schools across the North East, funded by the Food Standards Agency and managed by ContinYou.

Prue was also expertly interviewed, twice, (once in private and once in front of all delegates) by the young What's Cooking? interviewers and she was mightily impressed with not only there passion to find out about food but also their communication and presentation skills.

Jodie a young girl that was extremely timid and shy when we first met her at ContinYou's Schools of the future conference in March was the shining light. In fact the 3 young people that had come to conference, all year 7 pupils, expertly mentored the other 10 young people, most of them from years 8 and 9.

The young people stole the show with their confidence, performance and manner. Anthony addressed the whole conference at the conclusion regarding What's Cooking? and the children were publicly thanked by both Prue and the conference chair.

Interviews and photographs are available on the Radiowaves What's Cooking? webpage.

Sunderland's Cook Off Event

Lee Murdoch, Food in Schools Co-ordinator, Sunderland

The Sunderland celebratory event took place on 22 June at St Anthony's School, young people from Washington and Houghton Kepier School also attended.

Teams from the three Sunderland schools took to the kitchen to prepare healthy two course meals of their choice focusing around the messages stipulated from the Balance of Good Health. Local celebrity Chef (Expo Chef), Specialist Dietician and Food in Schools Co-ordinator plus a pupil representative from each school judged the Cook Off.

The event was extremely successful with Washington School being our winners. They received a certificate with team names on, each team member received a Kenwood blender to take home and the school received the same to be used in the food technology rooms.

The local newspaper the Echo and Journal appeared to take photos of the event and the winner! View the press article at the top of this page.

Middlesbrough Celebration Event

Anthony Kirkbride, Study Support Officer, Middlesbrough Council

Almost 200 people attended the What's Cooking? Middlesbrough celebration. The event was held at Middlesbrough Town Hall on Friday 6 July 2007.

Everyone shared their successes over the past year and had an excellent experience do so. Activities during the day included:

  • dress a chef
  • school presentations
  • live cooking experience from David Hall (Expo Chef)
  • food stalls from the clubs
  • pancake challenge.

Lots of fun and sharing of learning took place.

Improving Health and Fitness through a What’s Cooking? and Fitness Club

Whickham School and Sports College, Kim Websdale, Director of Sport

The school wanted to provide an opportunity for selected students in year 8 to improve their cooking/hygiene skills and develop an understanding of healthy eating options. They combined the cooking element with a fitness/activity session in order to develop an understanding of healthy lifestyles.

Download the Whickam School and Sports College case study (Word file, 168 KB) 

EdComs case studies and final evaluation report

Case studies

Twelve case studies collected as part of the EdComs evaluation of the What’s Cooking? programme in the North East. Download the EdComs case studies (Word file, 155 KB)

Evaluation

Food Standards Agency have now published the evaluation of What's Cooking? clubs in the North East of England on the Agency website. Download a copy of the report from the FSA website.