Learning & Development: Cooking - The perfect recipe

Cooking for children should try to be more than just the safe option of fairycake with squirty icing. At Cowgate Under-Fives Centre in Edinburgh, centre head Lynn Mcnair says, 'Last week, we cooked a trout on the fire in the garden. The trout was complete with eyes and tail, and the garden had an "interesting" smell. The children loved it!'

Cowgate (see box) is just one of an increasing number of nurseries that place cooking at the heart of the curriculum. Those that take it seriously commit serious resources to it, because of the lessons it teaches over the range of the early years curriculum.

Difficult concepts for children - for example, taking turns - are more easily understood if linked to specific tasks, such as making a biscuit. They help develop a more co-operative way of working. Children who choose to cook understand that it means washing up afterwards. They learn about decision-making, concentration and the satisfaction of completing a complex task. Above all, they understand that they are trusted and valued, and in turn learn to respect others.

Sian Church is assistant head at Southway Early Childhood Centre in Bedford. She explains that the experience of planning, shopping for ingredients, following recipes and cooking will cover several elements of each of the areas of learning outlined in the EYFS: Language, in reading recipe books and following instructions; mathematics, in weighing, counting and measuring ingredients; knowledge and understanding of the world in adapting recipes, or encountering other cultures through food and festivals; creativity, in decorating cakes, or topping pizza; physical development in cutting, chopping, stirring, and staying safe while taking risks. Personal and social elements are covered in group working, increasing independence, and the self-esteem which comes from successfully accomplishing the activity.

At Southway, all age groups are involved in cooking, from growing vegetables, to shopping, mixing, tasting and clearing up afterwards. Parents are found to value all these lessons, and have reported no particular concerns about children using knives or hot ovens.

Sian Church says, 'We are a Froebelian setting, so it is about the children learning about the passage of time, connecting it to the rhythms of the day, understanding changing seasons and linking it with experiences with outdoors, growing herbs and vegetables in the garden or going to the market.

'We try to do seasonal cookery, so, for example, in the approach to Mothering Sunday children had the opportunity to be involved in making simnel cake. We led into that experience with a display of ingredients for children to touch and talk about. Children can also do very basic cooking and have independent access to, for example, making cakes. But they know the rules, that if you cook then you wash up afterwards and leave the area ready for next time.'

The cooking environment is carefully structured to promote independence. Ingredients are stored in manageable-sized tubs, and, to make things straightforward for readers and non-readers alike, labelled by both colour coding and words. If something is spilled, children are shown how to clean up.

Children can follow recipes in illustrated sequence books. The abler ones are shown how to use sharp knives safely, and enjoy the trust shown in them. 'For some, it might be their only opportunity to cook,' says Ms Church. 'Nurseries are special places where you can try out things even if you are seen as the spiller or dropper at home.'

On birthdays, children cook two cakes - one to take home and one to share with the nursery community. Religious festivals like Diwali and Eid are marked with the preparation of special foods too.

Ms Church sees cooking as all-important. 'It helps children learn about the world. It gives them opportunities to smell, taste, touch, use tools, learn about economics. It's such a rich experience, which links in with so many of their experiences at home.'

CORE EXPERIENCE

Julian Grenier, former head of Kate Greenaway Nursery School and Children's Centre in Islington, London, agrees that cooking is an effective way to develop best practice in the EYFS.

He recognises the value of Southway's approach. A visit there, he says, made him realise how his own nursery treated cooking as an activity requiring special planning and mobilisation - who would do it, where, who had the recipe, who would buy the ingredients, and so on. At Southway, he realised, children were free to cook any time.

Kate Greenaway has developed a 'core experiences' approach in which learning opportunities are presented very regularly to all children across the whole age range. The 14 core experiences, including cookery, have now been written into a handbook.

Head of the local authority's EYFS team Penny Kenway has welcomed the initiative. She says, 'The document's accessibility to all fulfils the key role that nursery schools and children's centres can and must play in disseminating the good practice they have developed.'

The handbook is now available to buy or is accessible online in the Wikia format. Julian Grenier is thrilled by feedback so far. He says, 'I would argue that the Government and its agencies would do well to think a great deal more about what would enable nurseries to develop practitioners' knowledge, skill and professionalism, and put less emphasis on new initiatives and yet more guidance.'

MORE INFORMATION

- Cowgate Under-Fives Centre, 172 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1QX, www.cowgateunder5s.co.uk. Sequence books (see below) available to buy via website.

- Copies of the Core Experiences handbook are available from Early Education at www.early-education.org.uk or phone 020 7539 5400. An online version can be accessed at www.coreexperiences.wikia.com

- 'All about ... planning around core experiences' by Julian Grenier (Nursery World, 4 February 2010)

THEIR DAILY BREAD

One day in the future, an evocative waft of freshly baked bread is likely to transport some Edinburgh-born adults back to their time as young children at nursery.

The daily routine of bread-making is one aspect of the Cowgate Under-Fives Centre which places cookery at the heart of its activities.

Centre head Lynn Mcnair says that as a Froebelian setting, the centre aims to be not a home, not a school, but home-like. 'At the heart of every home-like environment is the kitchen, so every morning the children bake bread for their snack, and this daily routine sets them up for the morning. The aroma of the dough cooking in the oven adds a fragrance of home, of warmth. Children can also choose to make a little loaf to take home at the end of the day.'

She says that the experience of chatting over the day's events while baking provides children with a sense of self-esteem, relaxation, familiarity, and comfort. 'The children may feel safe in the way they know the bread will be baked, and a routine is in place, which can add to the child's safety and well-being.'

The centre has developed a series of sequence books covering a variety of activities, including how to bake bread, scones, birthday cakes and seasonal treats like hot cross buns. These simple recipe books (a winner in the 2009 Nursery World awards) place print in a meaningful context - just one of the ways in which cookery covers the areas of learning outlined in curriculum guidance.

The centre has started 'Soup Friday', a weekly communal soup-making session using home-grown vegetables which the children then eat for lunch. The activity reinforces their experiences of planting, the passing of time while crops grow, and harvesting the end product.

At Cowgate, children bake throughout the day, perhaps using fresh produce from the garden or greenhouse, or eggs from Lynn's own chickens. They plan and shop for food, learning a variety of skills, from counting money to engaging with the wider community.

Cowgate is a Fair Trade school and children are aware of buying mostly ethicallysourced products. This links to their sponsorship of a child in Niger, with lessons about how scarce food may be in other parts of the world.

It is also an eco-school, and Ms Mcnair says the children are taught to care for their environment and be careful not to waste food. They enjoy cooking outdoors, making damper (bread), grilling fish, roasting chestnuts or toasting marshmallows. 'In our forest school, children cook on the open fire. One of their favourite things is toasting marshmallows,' Ms Mcnair says. 'When we consider the learning here, it is vast - but it is the memories of these wonderful times that will last.'