Teaching how to cook together at Camestone is child’s play

Camestone Primary School in Kempston, Bedford, is home to around 400 pupils and is proud of its strong family ethos, reflected in its motto: “Exploring Learning Together.”

This made Camestone the perfect setting for Food etc’s Kinder Kitchen programme—bringing parents and young children together to cook, learn, and share quality time.

Kinder Kitchen is a six-week course, funded by Bedford Giving, designed for under-5s and their parents. Each week, families cooked and tasted simple, affordable, and nutritious meals made from whole ingredients—helping both children and adults to explore foods they might not usually try.

Over the course of the programme, families prepared a range of meals including:

• vegetable chilli
• homemade pizzas
• savoury muffins
• soup
• biscuits

Alongside learning practical cooking skills, the sessions offered something just as valuable: uninterrupted family time, free from phones, tablets, and everyday distractions.

At the end of the course, every participant reported learning new recipes and feeling more confident cooking healthy meals at home. Parents also highlighted how much they valued spending focused time together and seeing their children’s confidence grow.

One parent added: “I enjoyed spending time cooking with my some. Each week he looked forward to it. Please continue teaching and providing basic life skills which so important to maintaining a health, positive society.”

Angie Spalding, Camestone’s Family Support Worker said: “It was wonderful to see not only the children’s knowledge of different foods but their confidence and life skills also develop week on week.

“Another interesting observation I made was how the families learnt from each other about different ways of cooking and using new ingredients. One family was so impressed with what their child have learnt and achieved that they have donated money to the school allowing us to offer another group of families this opportunity.”