A culinary project designed to help students learn about cooking nutritious food on a budget is underway at Coleg Sir Gâr.

The Cooking Club signs up students to its programme, provides free ingredients for around four or five people with a recipe card, which is bagged and handed out to students.

It’s not just about cheap food, it’s about finding fresh, nutritious food and creating interesting recipes and meals within a budget.

Coleg Sir Gâr lecturer Allan Lasky is leading the project which has resulted from his research into student poverty drawing on national data. “I found that there was a significant problem with food poverty and I kept asking myself what the solution was,” he said. “I looked at ideas such as toast or fruit stations and breakfast clubs, but these were difficult to fund plus we wanted a consistent message that nutrition is just as important as price.”

A trial of Cooking Club was carried out at Pibwrlwyd campus in Carmarthen where students used staple and long-shelf kitchen cupboard ingredients to make a nutritious pasta bake which was a success.

There are now nearly 50 students in the club and they all have given positive feedback with comments including, “We ate the soup as a family and it fed five of us!”, “People of my age can’t cook, well I can’t cook but I enjoyed making the recipe”, “I’m going to university next year and I need to learn how to cook before I go”, “I really liked the soup, I added a stock cube and some spices and I’m buying the ingredients again to cook it again at the weekend and “I found the instructions simple and easy to follow and because I have dyslexia, I was concerned I wouldn’t be able to follow them but it wasn’t a problem”.

Allan Lasky added: “Every recipe we create uses fresh ingredients with around four to five portions per bag of ingredients with a cost at around 70p per head.

“The hope is that we build a bulk of recipes over the year that students can refer back to and make again.

“I’m really pleased with the uptake and feedback so far and would encourage more students to join us as the club is also helping to feed the families of students too, who may be struggling with the cost of living.

“I guess it’s a little similar to the model of existing online food packages except that it’s free and it’s benefitting and educating students.”

This is the first year of the Cooking Club and ingredients and resources have so far been supplied by Cook24 which is funded by the UK Government.

Staff from Coleg Sir Gâr and Coleg Ceredigion visited Solihull College as part of a week-long Teach the Teacher experience hosted by the brainchild of the project, Rachel Arnold.

The Teach the Teacher project aims to build relationships between staff and GCSE students who are resitting maths and English at college, by reversing roles which sees the teacher being taught by the student.

Students who have progressed to college to study a vocational area of choice such as construction or professional cookery, generally excel at it.  But for many who need to resit their GCSEs alongside this, attending classes can often bring feelings of apprehension and low self-expectation. 

This project offers an opportunity to empower students and give them the chance to show their literacy and numeracy teachers their talents. 

A pilot Teach the Teacher project launched at Coleg Sir Gâr and Coleg Ceredigion in 2023 and saw lecturers take part in catering and animal care sessions, with improved relationships, attendance, engagement and motivation in skills sessions as a result. 

This trip to Solihull was a valuable opportunity for tutors to see the project in action on a larger scale and skills staff at Coleg Sir Gar and Coleg Ceredigion are now extending this project to include more faculty areas and campuses. 

In Solihull, staff took part in a diverse range of activities including wallpapering, carpentry, animal care and hairdressing, and were guided and encouraged through activities at every stage by confident and knowledgeable vocational learners, who were also resitting their maths and/or English qualifications.

One of the tutors who attended is part of the government-funded Multiply programme which helps over 19s and employers access free maths qualifications. 

Alex Huggett, head of lifelong learning and skills, is leading the project at Coleg Sir Gâr and Coleg Ceredigion. She said: “We were really grateful for the wonderful opportunity to experience the project in action and hear tutors and learners talk so positively about its impact. 

“We were so impressed with the learners we worked with; they were incredibly welcoming, encouraging, and knowledgeable and are a credit to their tutors at Solihull.

“The trip provided a powerful opportunity to showcase how the project can help develop relationships between staff and students, even when they have never met before. 

“The learners at Solihull really embraced us and it was a real pleasure to get to know them in a short space of time. They were so knowledgeable and confident in their vocational subjects and were excellent teachers - their encouragement and praise were testament to the supportive environment they clearly enjoy in their own sessions. 

“This has only made us keener to roll out this project at college - the potential to develop such vital relationships, build learner confidence and empower learners through this role reversal has extensive potential benefits in the skills classroom.”  

Stephanie Hawkes, numeracy coordinator at Coleg Sir Gâr and Coleg Ceredigion said: “The opportunities we saw for skills development, and in particular numeracy development in varied vocational areas was astounding. 

“Often, we find that embedding numeracy in curriculum classrooms - outside of skills sessions - can provide quite a challenge, but the opportunities for numeracy development were evident in all the sessions we took part in, from wallpapering to hairdressing to carpentry. 

“Developing this project for us will afford us opportunities not only to share ideas for embedding numeracy in curriculum areas, but also learn about different subjects and better contextualise our own lesson content to suit the students in our skills classes.” 

Suzanne Mountfield-Rees, literacy coordinator at Coleg Sir Gâr and Coleg Ceredigion said: “Our experience at Solihull offered a valuable opportunity to see how the project could help us build vital relationships with curriculum tutors - the lecturing and support staff at Solihull were extremely welcoming and generous with their time and expertise. To be invited into their classrooms helped us better appreciate the workings of diverse vocational settings.”

Nick Allen, skills lecturer at Coleg Ceredigion said: “As well as the benefits this project can have for engagement and motivation, skills development, confidence, and relationships, it is also a great opportunity for staff to learn new skills and for all involved to have a bit of fun.”

Rachel Arnold, an English lecturer and learning coach who originally created the programme, added: “It has been fantastic to collaborate with Coleg Sir Gar over the last 18 months and to see them embrace the Teach the Teacher intervention and adapt it to their staff and students.” 

“It was a pleasure to welcome some of their staff to Solihull College and share our Teach the Teacher week with them. Working together and sharing insights about research is powerful, whilst getting stuck in and picking up a few vocational skills along the way.”