PRIMARY school pupils in Oxfordshire now have their own masterchefs after 45 kitchen cooks graduated from a new training course.

The cooks are celebrating their success after gaining a NVQ Level Two qualification in food processing and cooking.

Food With Thought, the county council’s school meal provider, has set up its own state-of-the-art training kitch-en in Rose Hill, Oxford, and training has also taken place at Oxford and Cherwell Valley College.

Liz Smy, 53, catering supervisor at Edward Feild Primary School in Kidlington, said: “I learnt new knife skills for boning chicken, and lots of other techniques which I have been able to share with my colleagues.

“I have been with the catering service for 19 years and it was great to pick up new skills.

“The pupils are definitely enjoying their food at the moment – their favourite is roast dinner with Yorkshire pudding.”

Trudi Boyce, 39, catering supervisor at Appleton Primary School, near Abingdon, added: “It was a fantastic course and I would love to move on to the next level.

“I now make fresh bread at the school which the pupils enjoy, and they also love macaroni cheese.”

Les Redhead, operations manager for Food With Thou-ght, which serves up 1.25 million school meals a year, said: “The aim of the course is for kitchen staff to enhance their skills and use ingredients in a different and more inspiring way to make school meals more tempting for the children.

“They can then take their new ideas back to their colleagues at the county’s primary schools.

“The course involves several days per term at the training kitchen, with close assessment back in the workplace as well.

“We are already reaping the benefits with a rise in meal uptake by 100,000 on last year’s figures.

“We want to be able to put at least one person from every primary school kitchen through the course.”

Another course is now running at Rose Hill, with 15 more trainees keen to show off their new skills, while another six are expanding their cooking skills at Oxford and Cherwell Valley College.

In May last year, the council said that out of the county’s 259 primary and special schools, 218 provide hot lunches, while the remaining 41 schools provide a ‘boxed meal service’ for children entitled to free school meals.

Boxed meals are hot meals cooked and delivered by a neighbouring school.