LUCY MAY
Lucy has over 20 years’ experience in education, having started teaching in 1996. She spent many happy years in primary education, then expanded her experience with a series of placements in special needs schools, PRUs and offering extension activities for gifted and able children.
Community education and running her own projects called her away from consulting work in 2004 when she set up The Organic Cookery School.
I’ve always loved cooking and was fortunate enough to have a mum who cooked our family meals from scratch and involved me from an early age. I remember taking my Girl Guide Hostess and Cookery badge at age 11, proudly serving up a classic shepherd’s pie and Victoria sponge cake. Since then, I’ve become a bit of a more of a wholefood enthusiast and nutrition geek, and increasingly committed to using organic and seasonal foods as much as possible.
There are so many benefits to cooking with your children. The Primary school teacher in me would flag up all the embedded Maths and English skills your children will get to practise, the Early Years specialist thinks motor skills and creativity and the Foodie in me knows just how much children benefit from learning about great ingredients and flavours from an early age.
And there’s clearly a demand - thousands of parents come to us every year wanting to expand their cooking repertoire and find out more about their family’s changing nutritional needs, or just to find a local opportunity for their child or teenager to cook with others.
Teenagers want to know how to fend for themselves – cooking from scratch and learning how to budget and meal plan are essential life skills, which many young people leave home without.
It’s a privilege to teach these children, families and young people and to lead a committed team of tutors who make a real difference to people’s lives.
When Lucy isn’t writing funding applications or trialling new recipes, she offers a mentoring service to would be social enterprise and non-profits start- ups and sits on the board of Little Sprouts, another UK based non-profit which benefits families in extreme need.