Budding chefs serve up a tasty culinary treat!

27 June 2007

Dish of the day...children serve up pizzas at the Schoolfriend Club

SCHOOLCHILDREN with the right ingredients have been busy cooking.

The Schoolfriend Club at Tollgate Primary in Plaistow is the first national after-school club in the country to introduce a 'healthy supper menu'.

This aims to provide children with a varied, tasty and healthy selection of food.

The Recorder captured youngsters making pizzas with a selection of toppings.

They also had a choice of smoothies, fruit drinks, green salad and three types of fruit.

Eliza Luxton, 11, said: "The Schoolfriend Club is really lovely and healthy and there is always plenty of salad and fruit. I especially enjoy choosing different toppings for the pizza and helping to prepare it."

Nine-year-old Haroldas Trunca said: "Every day we have different food. It's fun to try new things like tortilla wraps and naan bread. I love the fruit smoothies, they taste great."

Schoolfriend etc, the country's largest charitable childcare provider, is running the pilot scheme providing a hot meal for all children attending the club at Tollgate.

This new initiative is designed to encourage children from a young age to develop a love of nutritious food, and to show that it can be tasty as well as healthy. It also eases the pressure on working parents. Andrea Raymond, support officer at the Schoolfriend Club at Tollgate, said: "The children have been very excited by the new menus and especially enjoy the aspects that they can get involved in, such as choosing their own toppings for the pizza and making their own smoothies.

"This initiative has added a new dimension to the after-school club and parents are delighted that their children can have a nourishing hot meal at the Schoolfriend Club."

Children attending the club following the introduction of this healthy menu have been given the opportunity to help prepare the food in a bid to encourage an interest in the cooking and preparation of nutritious food.

The menu will change on a monthly basis and includes jacket potatoes with a selection of toppings, green salads, a selection of breads, dips, couscous, plenty of fruit and vegetables, pasta, soups, and the opportunity for children to make their own pizza.

Schoolfriend etc is currently piloting the healthy supper menu in other clubs around the country. It plans to roll out the initiative nationally in all of the charity's clubs this year.