Education: Into the cooking wonderland

Children love to cook. They enjoy weighing, mixing, licking the bowl and cutting. Then they love to eat what they've made. What's more, they learn science and mathematics while they do it. Prue Leith, cook and restaurateur, thinks children should be taught to cook from as young as five. Diana Hinds visits a school where cooking is taken seriously.

The children were busy making biscuits in the shape of angels and Christmas trees. They were mouth-watering cheese straws, which they were going to sell at the school's winter wonderland fair. "What does it feel like?" asks Nicola Hayden, reception class teacher. "Like porridge," says Jason, referring to the flour. "Yukky," says Alexandra, as she squidges the margarine into the mixture.

The children mix, grate cheese ("when I touched it I didn't get bleed," says one), roll and cut the dough into shapes ("do we want it thick or thin?" Nicola prompts).

Their only disappointment is that they are not going to be allowed to put chocolate icing on the biscuits: ("Do you think you want to put icing on something cheesy?" Nicola asks. "Yes," they say.) But their sense of achievement is evident when the biscuits came out of the oven, and are passed around for the class to taste. "My mummy will love these; they're crumbly and tasty," says Jason.

The hectic culinary activity was taking place at Primrose Hill primary school, north London, which has just invested in five new cookers. The reception class has been doing a project on food this term. Working with four children at a time - normally she will endeavour to hear others read while she cooks - Nicola Hayden gets them to read the quantities in the recipe, and count out the spoonfuls of flour.

Children from the nursery and reception classes cook regularly at Primrose Hill, and the six-year-olds do a bit, too. But once the children get older and there is no classroom helper, it becomes much harder to organise. "We don't do as much cooking as we would like," says Kaushi Silva, the head teacher, who estimates that only a minority of children do any cooking at home. Parents or volunteers can sometimes be brought in to help, but teachers need to be involved, too, to give cooking status and to ensure that the learning progresses: it is no good if children are still making the same fairy cakes at nine as they did when they were five.

The new campaigners for cooking in schools would like to see the subject given a larger and more structured place in the national curriculum. The practical activity of touching, tasting and creating food needs to be at the centre of food work, she says.

"Children need to appreciate the aesthetic qualities of food, its taste, texture and smell - things which are absent if all you do is pick food, ready-made, off a shelf," says Anita Cormac, director of Focus on Food, a new campaign being launched by the Royal Society of Arts in the New Year.

Practical experience can then link in with other parts of the curriculum, looking at nutrition, for instance, or, in geography, at the way the food industry works. The social aspect of food, much neglected, can also be fostered, Anita Cormac points out.

"We want children to see that they at least have a choice, that meals don't have to be just a question of sticking some food on a plate."

`Focus on Food' is a campaign to promote cooking and learning about food in schools. A `cooking bus', with trained staff on board, will visit primary schools, and a National Food Week in the summer term will involve schools throughout the country in a glut of food activity. More details on 01422 383191

my favourite christmas lunch

Andrew, five: "I would have lamb and gravy, carrots and broccoli and cauliflower. For pudding I would have lots of cakes."

Kunle, five: "Spaghetti bolognese."

Jemma, l0: "I would have spaghetti with mince on it, sweet corn and potatoes. And there would be ice cream for pudding, with strawberries. It's quite easy - I could probably cook it myself."

Amin, 10: "I'd like to make pizza but my mum doesn't know how to make it, so I need to learn from someone else. I'd have an Iranian puddling, which you have to get from Iranian shops; I love it because it's sour and very tasty."

Sekai, 11: "I'd have something from Zimbabwe that my granny makes, like porridge, but cooked for longer so you can pick it up. It's sort of white with no bits, and you have it with meat and spinach. For pudding I'd like my granny's fruit salad: it tastes different - maybe she puts alcohol in it."

All pupils from Primrose Hill Primary School, north London