Kitchen Academy
The Kitchen Academy provides cooking workshops and cooking demos for schools and communities. They also provide a pedal powered blender and the human fruit machine. Since 2002 Jethro has been running “Kitchen Academy” a company that takes chefs to schools and national events providing them with a unique and bespoke service of teaching children healthy cooking.
Aims and Objectives
At Kitchen Academy we passionately believe that all children should have the chance to gain sufficient skills and knowledge of how to cook. Through educating children in a fun environment we aim to teach them the importance of a healthy balanced diet.
Partners
Partners to projects that we have delivered have been the School Food Action Group, Brighton and Hove Food Partnership and the local Primary Care Trust
Methodology
Kitchen Academy has an active school programme and has been running healthy cooking day workshops for thousands of school children.
Kids Cooking Workshops
Our cooking workshops always have a buzz of excitement about them. The kids gained important life skills in the art of cooking, creating fantastic dishes such as falafels, sushi and wraps. The workshops ran five times a day and accommodated 20 students per session.
Smoothie Bike
This bizarre invention attracted an audience. The child (or willing parent) rode the bike, and as if by magic a fruit smoothie was made. An inspiring way of exercising and getting a healthy reward at the same time.
Human Fruit Machine
The giant sized fruit machine is a fantastic concept. Three children got inside the fruit machine where they found a selection of fruit. When the fruit machine arm was pulled the children choose a fruit and presented it through the opening in front of them. If they got three in a row then they won a healthy prize.
Open Cooking Demo
This workshop has been designed to work well with larger groups of children of up to around one hundred at a time. The cooking demonstration normally takes place in the school’s hall where the children watch and learn healthy recipes and the skills needed to create them. This is followed with some volunteered food tasting. The open cooking demonstration for children was good as it accommodated a large volume of children. This ran in-between the cooking workshops.
Promotion
The project was publicised through Kitchen Academy's Website www.kitchenacademy.co.uk
Resources
For the workshop to run funding was required. Kitchen Academy provided chefs for the day and the workshops took place in a local school. All the equipment was supplied by Kitchen Academy
Evaluation
Kitchen Academy carried out formal evaluation of the workshops.
Lessons Learned
We have learned how to make the workshops as exciting as possible for the children taking part. This not only makes it a fun day for the children but also means that they are likely to remember what they have learned.
Future Developments
Future plans for Kitchen Academy are to roll out healthy eating workshops at a number of schools nationwide. These projects will include a food market at the end of the school day. This means that parents can be involved and learn about what the children have been up to. Taking the learning home is a key element to the success of the project