In a national first, cookery and nutrition students at Kingstone High School were the lucky recipients of wild Alaska pink salmon to use in their classrooms, in a bid to improve their fish cookery skills.

The initiative is part of The Fish In Schools Hero programme which is run by the Food Teachers Centre, in partnership with the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. Together they will deliver an unprecedented 20,000 fillets of wild Alaska salmon to schools for cookery students to prepare up and down the country.

The programme aims to ensure that every child gets a chance to prepare, cook and eat fish before they leave school.

Students will be learning about sustainability and nutrition as well as developing delicious dishes with the Alaska salmon, such as salmon en croute, which Ms Rees's Year 10 group made in their practical lesson this week (click here to see gallery).

DT & Computing Teacher, Ms Rees said, "We are thrilled that we have been selected to receive the wild salmon from Alaska. It means that our students can not only learn about wild fisheries and the different tastes, textures and usages, but also cook with the fish themselves".

To support teachers, Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute and Food Teachers Centre have also developed sample lesson plans, a training workshop and video recipes by chef and former Masterchef winner Dhruv Baker.

Both teachers and students are completing the online Alaska seafood training course which is a deep dive into the Alaskan fishing industry and the different species available from Alaska; www.alaskaseafooduniversity.co.uk   

Rebecca Wilson, Trade Director for Alaska Seafood in Northern Europe commented, “We are delighted to partner with the Food Teachers Centre for their Fish in Schools Hero Programme. We have been working with Fish In Schools Hero programme for over a year to get the Alaska salmon into students’ hands and we are pleased that students will finally get the opportunity to cook with it.”

Simon Gray, Senior Associate at the Food Teachers Centre said, “94% of our teachers surveyed in 2020 wanted their pupils to use different fish and not to be scared of trying something new, but less than half of them used fresh or frozen fish. This unique opportunity overcomes the obstacles teachers face with regards cost, sourcing fresh fish, and cooking skills in schools to introduce students to wild, sustainable, healthy and delicious fish. We’ve created training to build teachers’ confidence, recipes to make their lesson run smoothly and delivered high quality fish that schools will love to try. We are excited to see the difference this will make to young people in the future.”