The inaugural Shared Education Cookery Competition took place across 2 days in June. Mrs Evans along with Mrs Anderson her counterpart from Wellington College led a hugely successful event. 24 pupils from both schools participated in a planning day in Aquinas on Monday 10th June in preparation for a “Food from around the World” themed cookery competition. On the planning day Chef Jeffers from the Forestside Cookery school, came to talk to the pupils about ideas for the competition and made some delicious Thai dishes for us all to sample. After some icebreaker activities four groups of pupils researched and planned a range of dishes which they would make in the final competition. They used Google Classroom to share their recipes and to make changes once individual pupils had practiced their parts of the menu at home.

On 21st June the pupils had a thoroughly enjoyable day competing in their teams to win the coveted ‘Shared Education Super Chef’s’ title. Forestside Cookery School aprons for the event were kindly donated by Forestside Shopping Centre Manager, Mr Lee Cutler, which the pupils were able to keep as a souvenir of their Shared Education experience. They made a phenomenal array of food from four different countries and all the pupils enjoyed the social experience of dining together afterwards. Whilst all the food looked and tasted amazing the Spanish team won and each received a Chef Jeffers Forestside Cookery Book which he signed with a personal message for each winner. MaryJo McCullough from the Education Authority was on hand to present the prizes.

The Shared Education Co-ordinators at Aquinas and Wellington and most importantly the pupils involved would like to thank Mrs Evans and Mrs Anderson for all their hard work in organising the Cookery Competition.