Monday evenings are looking rather different for our Year 10 pupils who are taking part in our diverse Pioneers programme.
Within the programme, and as part of our ongoing collaboration with local schools, a minibus heads down to Broadwater School to use the home economics facilities.
Here our pupils are met by familiar faces from our Catering Department – Quinten Basson (Director of Catering), Jess Greaves (Nutritionist) and Helen Mansey (Sous chef) – who have put together a six-week cookery programme. The team have put together a quick and tasty menu of well-balanced meals, building on skills from previous sessions each week.
With Quinten, whose career started as a chef, on hand to help the pupils hone their knife and hot plate skills, the pupils have progressed from salads to omelettes to crispy chilli beef.
As well as picking up life skills for university and beyond, the course has introduced chef’s touches such as cornflour-coating meat to get the perfect crisp fry, and the pupils' passion for the kitchen is obvious.
Quinten commented 'We're only three sessions in, but we can already see the increase of the pupils' confidence in the kitchen, and seeing them enjoy eating what they have created themselves is what our goal for this programme is'.
Whilst Jess added 'It's been brilliant to get the programme up and running. We’ve been so lucky to use the space at Broadwater school – it is a great environment for pupils to learn and organise their stations well. Each session starts with a live demo of the dish (Blue Peter style!) and ends with a 'Cook of the day' award and, most importantly, eating and enjoying the dishes together. It’s been a really enjoyable venture!'
If you’d like to try one of the options the Pioneers are cooking for yourself, the Asian-inspired chilli beef recipe is below:
