Wirral boys’ schools share £1.2m for soup making lessons

Aug 12 2009 by Ben Turner, Birkenhead News

FOUR Wirral boys’ schools are to share a £1.2m injection so students can learn how to make soup.

St Anselm’s College, Prenton; Wirral Grammar School for Boys, Bebington; Calday Grammar School, West Kirby and Birkenhead’s Kilgarth School are to have the makeovers because cooking is to be compulsory for 11 to 14 year-olds by 2011.

Most schools are already teaching the new Key Stage 3 lessons which task pupils to learn over the course of a term how to cook basic meals.

They also learning basic food hygiene and about nutrition and diet. The four are among 15% of the UK’s schools qualifying for government funding because they lack suitable facilities and kitchens for food lessons.

Wirral council’s education officials said facilities would help address the gender balance.

Cllr Phil Davies, Cabinet member for Children’s Services and Lifelong Learning said: “It is a move away from the stereotype at schools in which only boys learn certain subjects and girls learn others.

“I think the funding will help broaden the pupils’ horizons and give these boys a richer curriculum.”

St Anselm’s will be the first to get a refurbishment with its £400,000 scheme due to be finished in April next year.

It will comprise a single-storey teaching “food hub” as well as an area to grow produce.

The others will follow and will be completed in time for the 2011 deadline.

The Campaign For Real Education, which pushes for better standards of teaching, attacked the Wirral makeover.

Chairman Nick Seaton said: “They will be teaching the boys knitting next. This is a waste of tax payers’ money.”