Fish Hero

Posted at 1:19 pm on 7th July, 2021

Sharing skills and knowledge between staff and students forms the heart of life at Flixton Girls School (FGS). Our ethos for inspiring and empowering all students to learn, understand and develop their skills and the footprint they leave on both the community and the world in which they live, is at the forefront of our curriculum content. This is why students, in our Food teaching provision learn about how living sustainably benefits both their health and wellbeing, as well as the health of our planet.

This ethos steered Jill Atkinson, Teacher of Food to up-skill her own continued professional development (CPD) and participate in a one-day, on-line ’Fish Hero’ training programme, run by the Food Teachers Centre. This five module programme incorporated the benefits of using and cooking sustainably reared and caught Alaskan fish but also basic biology and seafood species, method of capture/farm cultivation, cooking methods and health values. The whole programme promotes more fish cookery in schools and aids the education of students to the benefits of cooking nutritious dishes using sustainable fish.

Participating teachers were offered the chance to submit scores to the sponsors Alaskan Seafood University to be entered into a prize draw for £40 of wild Alaskan Salmon. Jill said, ‘I was so pleased to find out that I had won the prize. I am really looking forward to receiving the fish and sharing the cooking experience with my year 10 students. They will be recreating Dhruv Baker, MasterChef winner 2010, restauranteur and charcutier show stopping recipe Alaskan pink salmon and tarragon tart, served with tomato concasse and chive salad dressed with rapeseed oil mayonnaise.’

As part of the ‘Fish Hero’ training programme, Dhruv demonstrated how to expertly fillet a highly sought-after Wild Alaska King Salmon, using it to create his show stopping recipe. Food Teachers Centre predict his recipe will become a ‘Hero Dish’ cooked in hundreds of schools across the country. FGS are happy to join the hero dish cohort! At FGS we actively encourage our students to prepare, cook and taste fish both during food lessons at school and at home. Cooking and eating sustainably and responsibly forms part of our Health and Wellbeing offer, which supports our five curriculum pathways and vision of The Healthy Learning Trust.

Mrs Atkinson said, ‘Year 10 students have done really well to complete this high technical skill cooking task within their double practical lesson. They have shown a good work ethic and stayed on task to complete the task on time. It has been lovely to see the group working together and sharing their cooking experiences. My year 8 students, earlier this week, choose to use fish during a free choice practical lesson. They produced a variety of dishes including kedgeree and fish curry, which were all delish!’   

Year 10 students said:

Imogen - ‘I love salmon and my favourite recipe is teriyaki salmon with asparagus.’

Heather – ‘I love fish and enjoy cooking it both at school and at home, in fact last night my family and I made a salmon quiche – it was delicious!’