WURRUK Tucker is a program teaching Wurruk Primary School’s students healthier eating habits and cooking skills.

Principal Gayle Coleman explained Wurruk Tucker began as a trial in term three to offer communal meals at school, building on the long-standing Breakfast Club tradition. Students can still go to Breakfast Club and have brain fruit break, recess and lunch supplied.

The program is optional and students can bring their own lunch.

The aim is to provide food for all children and encourage them to try healthy foods together.

“It makes a community, is what it does. Food brings people together, so that’s the basis of it: if you provide food, they all come. We sit together, we eat together,” Ms Coleman said.

Outside the staff room kitchen, tables are set up where the school’s 40 students, staff, and occasionally the kindergarten come together to enjoy homemade treats. Tacos, lettuce cups, butter chicken, corn fritters, and egg and lettuce sandwiches are some of these.

The program is student-led, with students responsible for planning weekly menus, cooking, baking, and cleaning up afterwards.

Two senior students from years five and six are rostered on kitchen duty every week. Soon, junior students will be helping Belinda Buckley, who runs the program, bake on Monday.

Ms Buckley previously ran a cooking class on Wednesday. She said teaching students about nutrition was critical.

“We found more and more packets coming in the lunch boxes, and so, we just really wanted to open up the world of nutrition – what’s tasty, what’s good, what’s easy to cook,” she said.

Two students are required for full days on Monday and Friday and half days the remainder of the week. They are responsible for cooking, cutting and baking throughout the week, plus cleaning and setting the outdoor tables at lunchtime on ‘Hot Food Fridays’.

“We set the tables properly – tablecloths, cutlery, plates,” Ms Buckley said.

On Hot Food Friday last week, year five and six students Hamish Styles and Erick Blasius-Campbell cooked korma curry and naan bread while listening to music, which they only get to do on a Friday. They had been helping Ms Buckley all week.

Belinda Buckley, Erick Blasius-Campbell and Hamish Styles in Wurruk Primary School’s vegetable garden where produce for Wurruk Tucker is grown. Photo: Erika Allen

Erick, working his second shift in the kitchen, shared that since the program began, he’s been helping cook some of his favourite meals, like spaghetti Bolognese, at home.

It was Hamish’s fourth time in the kitchen. He said he enjoys learning to cook because it’s different from typical schoolwork.

The lessons are two-fold.

Ms Coleman said students are learning socialisation and etiquette, plus ‘everyday skills’ like cooking, cleaning, and budgeting when Ms Buckley takes them to the supermarket for the weekly grocery shop.

The impacts are noticeable.

“The benefits I see are the ability to concentrate within a classroom because they’re having healthy, beautiful foods,” Ms Coleman said.

Ms Buckley noticed positive changes, too.

“It’s been really good to talk to the kids… it’s a good destress for them to talk to each other. There’s only three of us in the kitchen, so it’s pretty relaxed,” she said.

Tuesday through Thursday, students get to choose the flavour of sandwiches that go into lunchboxes provided by the school. Baked goods like Nutella scrolls – a favourite – also go in lunchboxes.

Last Wednesday for example, students enjoyed homemade scones with jam and cream, yoghurt with banana chips, and a fruit platter of strawberries, apples, rock melon and blueberries. Thursdays take it up a notch with a cheese platter offering nibbles like gherkins, biscuits, and dip.

“On a Monday, we do what students call ‘Taste Testers’, so it’s honey and vegemite sandwiches, and then they will make up a sandwich like this week was chicken, mayonnaise, celery and sweet chilli,” Ms Buckley said.

It costs $35 per student per month to run Wurruk Tucker. Ms Coleman said some of the school’s budgeted “wellbeing funds” paid for supplies like groceries. She explained schools often use these funds in different ways.

Meanwhile, Foodbank generously supplies Breakfast Club, just as it does for other participating primary schools. Some produce is grown in the school vegetable garden, and Ms Coleman said the community had donated food like homegrown oranges knowing it goes towards the student’s lunches.

When asked if the program was feasible, Ms Coleman said she did not know how scalable it would be for a larger school but saw it being a practical long-term program at Wurruk.

There is room for improvement Ms Coleman said, like renovating the kitchen.

Overall, Ms Coleman said the program has been successful.

“We share our learning here at the end of each term and we invite all the families, and we usually have a barbecue. But this time, what they did was the seniors made all the food that they’ve been making over the term, and they shared it with their families,” she explained.