2023 Early Years Award Prestonfield Nursery, Edinburgh, Scotland
It was Prestonfield’s Family Cooking initiative that really caught our attention, inviting families into the nursery for cooking sessions…
At this nursery, more than 70% of the children live in the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) band 1-3, the lowest bands of 10. These cooking sessions not only inspire a love of food, but also enable children to take home a healthy meal the whole family can share and easily replicate – helping those struggling financially, while also getting everyone to spend time together, continuing the fun at home. Win-win!.
The setting’s multicultural staff developed five delicious recipes for the initiative, including Italian, Indian and Mexican dishes. The project brings everyone joy: the families love the sessions, as it means they can share more than just food (cooking ideas, food bank locations, no-food-waste sites), while the nursery likes to see everyone getting together (the three lead staff go the extra mile every week to ensure the families have the best experience).
It’s so successful that school funding has been secured to buy utensils and a new cooker. There are also plans for a Grow Your Own area, and to expand the number of cooking stations to involve as many families as possible moving forward. We can’t wait to see what you guys do in the future.
Judged by Demi Stokes, presented by George Webster
We chatted to Kirsty…
What did it mean to win the award?
It’s just been incredible for us, but also for our nursery community as a whole. We started this project last year when the cost of living went through the roof and we had children coming to nursery hungry. The aim of it was to get families in to cook together, then at the end they’d have a meal to feed four. And since then, it’s just grown arms and legs!
We started off with one full cooker and two portable hobs, and now we have six cooking stations. We’re also getting someone to install bespoke worktops at the children’s height, so they can work easier. We spoke to the Education Committee in Edinburgh, in the hope that sharing the project could mean they pick it up and roll it out to schools. And it’s in the pipeline, as we’re talking to schools and nurseries about it. We’re hoping to keep teaching the children who are going from us to Primary 1, showing how the programme works. Eventually, we hope to have kids from Nursery right up to Primary 7 cooking.
What are you most proud of?
The whole team. We all work really hard together to try to make it the best experience for all the families. And it’s so rewarding, I can’t even tell you. The joy on the faces of these three and four year olds when they’re cooking is just so special. And they’re cutting, chopping, peeling – they’re doing all of it. That’s what it’s always been about – inspiring children and their families from that young age. My colleague Sal makes samosas with the kids and it’s like a magic trick. They put the filling in, then fold it over and fold it back and you have a perfect samosa. And their wee faces at what they’ve made is just magical. And we have that every day.
It’s also brought the community together, which has been really special. And I think we’re really lucky. We have such a multicultural community at the nursery and it’s meant we’ve learnt about food from different cultures. Families from Chile, Brazil, China and India all bring dishes from home that we all try. It’s just fabulous. We’ve even had a parent translate our recipes into Spanish, too, helping us reach more people. But more than that, they’ve become a support system for each other – they’ll ask each other where they can find ingredients, or they’ll let the group know what shops have the best deals. We can see the effect we’re having goes way beyond the nursery.
And the kids learn so much more than just cooking, don’t they?
A multitude of skills, and also confidence. A lot of our children aren’t getting the experience of cooking at home, so we’re giving them that opportunity, that education. And when you see them handling the flour or sticking their fingers in the dough and having a great time, it’s brilliant.
What are your goals for 2024?
It’s education in schools. Schools have seen our success with bringing the parents in, and they now want to do it themselves. Having the parents involved means that the education and good habits continue. In fact, we have parent volunteers who were on the very first session coming back. And they’re so encouraging to the other parents, because they’ve been there. Ultimately, I would love to see it rolled out across Edinburgh. But the more we can share what we’re doing with other people, and actually get people to understand the importance of the investment and the return, the better.
What’s your one piece of advice for all schools?
Get food on the curriculum from nursery. There’s no question. If you start at that age, and you engender their interest, there’s only one way it can go and that’s up. There’s been a massive push on PE and outdoor learning, but nutrition is a massive part of that as well, and that’s what we’re missing at the moment.
Do you think people underestimate children?
Without question. We use knives and graters from the very first session, and you can see some parents looking scared. They want to step in and do the cooking for the kids. And we have to step in and say, ‘Mum, he’s OK. He can do it!’ Look, you’re not gonna go through life without cutting yourself, and kids are super resilient, they’ll be absolutely fine and they’re doing it in a safe environment. It’s so important to let them have fun with food, get creative and find the joy in cooking.