After more than a year of planning, experimenting, baking, growing, tasting and dreaming about what school food could be, the moment has finally arrived. Our new school kitchen is up and running, and we are delighted to welcome Chef Laura to Graffham!

This is a VERY special moment for our school community.

When we first started talking about food at Graffham, we had a simple ambition: we wanted lunchtime to be about much more than simply eating a meal. We wanted it to be a time of joy, conversation and community, while helping our children develop a lifelong love of good, nutritious food.

Since then, the children have grown salads and vegetables, we have introduced freshly baked sourdough, started using flour from our local Burton Mill, explored sustainability and talked about where our food comes from. All these small steps have been building towards this moment.

We have also been blown away by the generosity of our local communities, who have helped us raise THOUSANDS of pounds towards new equipment and training. This project really couldn’t have happened without that kindness and support.

And now we have our very own chef!

We are thrilled to welcome Chef Laura, who will be cooking our lunches from scratch at Graffham using fresh, nutritious ingredients. She will be working alongside KT, our Kitchen Assistant, who will help deliver and serve delicious meals at Duncton each day.

We are excited that food can now become part of everyday life at school. The children will see food being prepared, smell the delicious cooking from the kitchen and, we hope, become increasingly curious about new ingredients, flavours and dishes.

Our partnership with Chefs in Schools has been an important part of making this possible. Their belief in fresh, scratch-cooked school food and in transforming children’s relationship with food fits beautifully with our own vision.

There is still lots to learn and plenty more to come. We want to continue developing our links with local producers, making the most of seasonal ingredients and, where possible, using food grown here at school. We also want the children involved – from growing and harvesting to tasting and learning about the food on their plates.

Most importantly, we want lunchtime to be something the children look forward to.

So, a huge welcome to Chef Laura and KT!

We are incredibly excited to have you as part of the Graffham and Duncton community and can’t wait to see where this next chapter of our food journey takes us.

The kitchen is open, the ovens are on, and our food adventure continues!