Dominic Bareham A HIGH school chef believes he has the ingredients to help improve parents' cookery skills by organising a Jamie Oliver-style course for parents and their children.

Dominic Bareham

A HIGH school chef believes he has the ingredients to help improve parents' cookery skills by organising a Jamie Oliver-style course for parents and their children.

Darren Barber, 34, who runs the kitchens at Cliff Park First and Middle Schools in Gorleston, was inspired by Jamie's Ministry of Food show on Channel 4 where the celebrity chef teaches people how to cook healthy meals so they can pass on the skills

to others.

He said: “I do think it is a brilliant idea, and one of the reasons I have started the club is so parents can get involved and pass on the teaching to the children.”

Mr Barber said he came up with the idea for the course before he had heard of Jamie's show, adding: “My main idea was to make the children more aware and more able to use some basic skills because at the moment food technology is not high on the curriculum and it is a basic life skill for children to have.”

He has organised one class a week at the middle school and one class a week at the high school to help families improve their lifestyles by learning how to cook.

Mr Barber, who has two sons Joshua, nine and Nathan, six, attending Cliff Park, received funding for the classes from the school's PTA and was looking to get 20 people involved in each of the two groups.

He said: “Some of the areas are deprived and I want it to be more of a social exercise to get parents and children doing something together and learning.”

Mr Barber, who lives in Bells Road, Gorleston, was a chef at Haven Holiday Parks across the country for 15 years, including Seashore Holiday Park at Great Yarmouth where he worked for nine years before joining the high school 18 months ago.

The high school sessions are on Fridays between 4pm and 5.30pm, while cookery classes at the middle school are on Mondays between 4pm and 5.30pm.