The day after making our lentil soup & bread we were heading through to St Andrews to take part in a cooking class in the Home Economics department with Maureen Kyle who delivered a lecture about ‘Food for Thought’ the previous week. Before getting to the school we were unaware of what we were going to be doing, however Maureen was providing all the resources that we would require.

The session lasted 2 hours between 4pm and 6pm. We were to make our own way to St Andrews but this was fine as a number of people drive on the course and with the sessions being split into 2 meant a lift was easily available! Having little knowledge of St Andrews except the centre, it was handy to be given a map to direct us to the school.

When we arrived, Kirsty & myself couldn’t believe what we saw…ingredients to make Lentil Soup & Bread!! But the good thing was it was a different way ie. lentil soup using vegetables & Irish soda bread. This therefore enabled us to try something new out again.

The session was quite fun as we had a nice little group who all got on and had a laugh, particularly at the 2 lost guys wandering around St Andrews before finally appearing! It did however feel a little like being back in school, having to wait and be shown how to do things however I understand that it was done this way to help make us think about if we were to ever carry out a similar activity with our class.

In relation to doing something similar in my own class, I have some doubts. Having opportunities to do cooking with a class can be very slim due to staffing numbers; class sizes; age/stage; behaviour etc. I therefore feel that it may be sometime, if ever, that I would be doing a serious cooking lesson where we’d make soup or something similar. Making bread may however be more achievable as you could pair the children up/simplify the activity etc. This is all dependent however on the school that you are working in and the children you are working with.

Some pictures from throughout the session minus the final bread product –