Get Cooking in the Classroom : Recipes to Promote Healthy Cooking and Nutrition in Primary Schools

Get Cooking in the Classroom is a practical, evidence-informed resource that helps primary schools actively improve children’s diets by teaching them how to prepare simple, healthy meals from real, unprocessed ingredients.

Designed to support the UK primary curriculum and the School Food Plan, this book enables teachers to deliver meaningful cooking and nutrition education that goes beyond theory. By involving children directly in preparing food from scratch, the recipes help pupils develop positive attitudes towards fruit, vegetables and whole foods, while reducing reliance on ultra-processed and packaged products.

The book contains 15 carefully structured recipes that focus on fresh ingredients and balanced nutrition. Each child makes their own individual portion, increasing engagement, ownership and pride. Research shows that children are far more likely to try and enjoy fruit and vegetables when they have prepared them themselves, and these recipes are specifically designed to encourage tasting, discussion and curiosity about healthier foods.

Completed dishes are intended to be taken home, helping children demonstrate new skills and influence food choices beyond the classroom. This home-sharing approach supports family conversations about healthy eating, helping to reinforce learning and encourage healthier choices at home.

Sally Brown

After a successful career in corporate PR & marketing, including driving the profitable launch of a B2C US Corporation in the UK, Sally took time away from her career to raise her family.

With a passion for cooking combined with the belief that young children can achieve and learn so much more from cooking than parents realise (her two young daughters at the time were clear evidence), Sally launched The Purple Kitchen Company in 2000. Committed to building an authentic business, Sally welcomed Kate Morris to the company and focused on delivering innovative cooking classes for children from the age of 2.

Sally is married with two daughters. Her parents were caterers and food retailers.

The Purple Kitchen has devised innovative, simple methods of preparing healthy dishes that very young children can do together with an adult and which promotes a healthy, broad diet and positive attitudes to food and meals. This is currently delivered through weekly classes to pre-school children and their carer, as well as curriculum support for Food Technology in KS1 and KS2.

Sally and Kate’s ambitions and aspirations for the business laid beyond the classroom and in 2008 they beat over 1,000 other ideas to win a commission with BBC’s CBeebies channel for the education zone for ‘I Can Cook’. This week day series now runs to 4 series making a total of 104 episodes.

As well as developing the ‘I Can Cook’ brand, including two books and a retail cook range with Lakeland, The Purple Kitchen has established a regular contribution to Nursery World magazine, developed recipes for Le Creuset and were engaged by Buckinghamshire and Wiltshire County Council and to deliver an original food training programme to those working with families with children teachers in the early years.

Kate Morris

After initially qualifying as a Home Economics teacher and spending 2 years at a secondary school in North London, Kate moved into consumer education.

Kate first worked for a home interest monthly national magazine for over 3 years (Woman and Home) and then continued to work freelance for a further 10 years.

Kate has extended her technical knowledge, qualifications and understanding of the power of food education in young children’s lives both through the practical teaching with Purple Kitchen over the past 9 years and further study with an OU certificate in Human Nutrition (2007) and her recently completed MSc in Food Policy from City University, London (2010).

Kate is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health and has recently been teaching Food Tech to boys yr 2-8.