On the news this morning was the announcement that every eleven year old was to be given a cookery book and that millions were to be spent on cookery lessons in schools.

I enjoy cooking, but I hated school cookery and was very grateful that I was in the A form where cookery and sewing were replaced by Latin. One might suggest that learning things in school is actually conter-productive in that I am a pretty good cook and seamstress, and a very poor linguist and classicist. I would actually put it the other way round and say that lessons learned at home are the most effective.

The other thing with home cookery is that, as well as being picked up gradually, it is always for a purpose with a family meal at the end of cooking. There is little point in taking home chilli con carne or baked stuffed liver (neither of which anyone likes) to be heated over after sitting in a tupperware box for half the day. There is equally no point in starting the child who started making fairy cakes at the age of two and by the age of eleven is perfectly capable of cooking a two course dinner unsupervised from scratch at the same level as a child whose notion of home cooking is to shove a ready meal in the microwave or pour water on a pot noodle.

I remember a day about five years ago when I overheard my niece and a friend (both aged about 9) discussing the best way to cook pheasant. Not only was there quite a debate about roast or casseroled, but how long they should be hung and whether they should be plucked or skinned. (In some circles Eliza Acton's dictum "first catch your hare" is still relevant!) Such children will only be put off by too elementary a starting point, like going back to learning how to count or read at the start of secondary school.

So, what is my solution?

Start with a questionnaire: ask the children straight out whether they can cook, but also probe a bit about what they mean by that, and also check out the vegetarians, piscatarians etc.

Offer the children a choice: give courses names like "Veggie dinners", "Easy suppers", "Party food", "Cakes and Buns", and grade them according to the starting point. A skilled teacher should be able to make sure that most basic techniques are covered in any topic.

Give the children time: Even if they only do one five or six week course a year, give them a full half day at a time so that they can eat the fruits of their labours at lunch time or take them straight home at teatime. They will then be able to cook the food properly from scratch instead of as happened to my niece - I swear this is true - bringing home a list of ingredients which included pizza base and jar of pizza topping!!! Things unknown in my house because i always make pizza from scratch, and in my sister's because she never makes pizza.

:pMake it fun: Use the available time for cooking, and let nutritional values drop in as the children are cooking so that they come to realise what is good for them and what is not without being preached at.