Overview
Cooking in school offers more than just a chance to make food - it's a powerful educational tool for our learners.
Through cooking, students develop vital life skills that promote independence and daily functioning. Tasks like preparing simple meals or snacks help build confidence and give pupils a sense of accomplishment. They also learn kitchen safety, an essential skill for home and community living.
Cognitively, cooking supports literacy, numeracy, and memory. Reading recipes, measuring ingredients, and following steps help improve sequencing and comprehension in a practical, hands-on way. Cooking also introduces cause-and-effect reasoning, as students observe how ingredients change with temperature or mixing.
The physical act of cooking boosts both fine and gross motor skills. Stirring, pouring, or using adapted utensils enhances coordination, while moving around the kitchen encourages purposeful movement. For students with sensory processing needs, the rich sensory environment of cooking—smells, textures, sounds, and tastes—can offer a safe, stimulating space to explore and engage.
Beyond academics, cooking builds emotional and social skills. It encourages teamwork, communication, and turn-taking, while also providing a calming, structured activity that supports emotional regulation. For students with profound needs, sensory-based participation—such as smelling herbs or feeling textures—can foster engagement and inclusion.
Incorporating cooking into the curriculum isn't just about teaching how to make a meal - it's about nourishing independence, creativity, and connection.
The Blue Pathway
Blue Pathway pupils access cooking through a multi-sensory approach in both discrete lessons and cross curricular activities. Learners have a cooking lesson once a week where they work on skills needed within the kitchen. This will include mixing, spreading, chopping and pouring. Pupils use switches to activate appliances to assist in the making of a dish.
Blue Pathway students access different parts of the wider curriculum through cooking and food. This engages them through the use of different senses and actions. They may be exploring and tasting foods from around the world or learning about careers through baking.
The Green Pathway
Green Pathway students learn about cooking through both discrete lessons and cross curricular activities. Cooking is taught as a lesson once a week, working on kitchen skills needed in everyday life. Pupils develop independence by measuring ingredients, mixing, spreading, cutting, pouring and using equipment and appliances safely.
Pupils also develop skills around reading and following a recipe, locating their ingredients and learning about the importance of healthy eating. Learners enjoy cooking through other subjects such as Duchess of Ely cooking on camp stoves, maths by weighing out ingredients, capacity and fractions, play-based skills with team games using food.
The Yellow Pathway
Impact