“You are a great cooker and I didn’t know that there was nine teaspoons of sugar in a can of Cola”, was typical of the many comments passed by the children at Christchurch Junior School when trustee Mary Reader and her team visited the school for four days, to teach the children food skills and healthy eating.

The team from Christchurch Food Festival Education Trust (CFFET) consisted of Loic Gratadoux, a Christchurch based chef who runs his own fine-dining company, Julie Laurent a former primary school teacher from Lymington, and Summer Moody who is doing her work placement with the Trust, while studying for a Master’s degree in nutrition and behaviour at Bournemouth University.

Mary said: “It is now eighteen years that I have been visiting this school and over time our healthy eating workshops have developed to include food labelling, so that children understand more about what is being put into their food, and also where food actually comes from.

“They are also now doing a maths exercise, calculating the amount of sugar in popular food and drinks.

“The children also took part in cooking a Mediterranean fish stew and a chicken chow mein, and were frequently amazed at how much they enjoyed food that they thought they didn’t like or hadn’t tasted before.”

Team leader of year five, Charlotte Dadds said: “It was absolutely amazing seeing the children trialling new foods and asking questions about nutrition. They all came away enthused and excited by what they had seen and many of them have gone home to make the recipes that they saw in the workshop.”

The team are now moving on to five other Christchurch primary schools from now until the end of March. For more information about the CFFET please visit www.cffet.org.uk