St Martin and St Mary C of E School, Windemere has made it through to the final give of the McDougalls Young Baking Team of the Year competition 2019 for the second year in a row. The final will be hosted in front of a live audience on Thursday 11th July at LACA – The Main Event at the Birmingham Hilton Metropole, the premiere local authority education event and the pinnacle event in the school catering calendar.
School caterers were asked to recruit an enthusiastic team of up to three children between the ages of seven and 11, and they were tasked with creating one recipe (sweet or savoury) using McDougalls Flour or a product from the McDougalls Flour Based Mix range. The recipe had to include at least one local ingredient, sourced from a maximum of thirty miles away from their school.
This year will also see the addition of a brand new guest judge, Professor Tanya Byron, a chartered clinical psychologist, who has appeared in two of her own TV shows and been a national columnist. Tanya will bring her expertise in confidence to this element of the competition.
This comes after feedback in previous years has shown that the competition is great for building children’s confidence. Premier Foods is excited to introduce another new element, in the form of a partnership with Birmingham Mind, the mental health charity, who will be on hand in the lead up and on the day of the competition.
On Wednesday 10th July a charity representative will be leading a one hour session with school caterers, running exercises on how best to deal with children’s confidence in the kitchen. On the day of the final, before the live bake off, all pupils from the shortlisted schools will also be taking part in a one hour workshop, which will involve resilience training to help relax the pupils and ensure they feel comfortable, confident and excited for the final ahead.
Sarah Robb, Channel Marketing Manager at Premier Foods comments: “This year is an incredibly exciting year for the McDougalls Young Baking Team of the Year Competition, not only is it our fifth year running but we also have a whole host of exciting new elements for 2019. First off, we are looking forward to welcoming a brand new guest judge, Tanya Byron, who will be joining the panel, I’m confident with all of the judges’ combined expertise we’re going to have our best year of judging yet.
“On top of this, we will also be working with Birmingham Mind, the mental health charity. This is such an important element to us as we have seen a clear link off the back of the competition between cooking and pupils’ confidence increasing, so we really believe this will help enhance this further. Mental health is a really key topic right now and it’s essential it’s taken seriously in the school environment.
“I want to finish by saying a huge thank you to everyone who took the time to register and enter, as well as a massive congratulations to all the shortlisted schools. As always it was so tough choosing the final five, we were blown away by the standard and we can’t wait to see all the incredible dishes come to life in our exciting live bake off at LACA. What an incredible way to celebrate the fifth anniversary.”
The team from St Martin and St Mary C of E School includes: Lucion Brumbley, Tallis Dodd and Harvey Higgins and they will be recreating their Apple Pudding dish.
