Cooking Club: Preparing Our Students for Life Beyond the Classroom

1 February 20261 February 2026 Michaela Bariakova

Every second Wednesday at 3:00 PM this semester, our school kitchen has come alive with energy, creativity, and delicious aromas. Our Cooking Club welcomed primary students from Year 2 to Year 6, offering them a unique opportunity to learn, create, and grow beyond the traditional classroom setting.

As an IB school, we are committed to preparing students not only academically, but also for real life. A key part of this preparation is developing practical life skills, and cooking is one of the most valuable skills students can learn from an early age.

Why Cooking Matters

Cooking is much more than following a recipe. Through our Cooking Club, students develop a wide range of essential skills:

Independence and confidence – Students learn how to prepare food on their own, building self-reliance and a sense of achievement.
Critical thinking and problem-solving – Measuring ingredients and adjusting recipes help students apply mathematics in real-life situations and make logical decisions.
Collaboration, communication, and leadership – Working in small groups encourages teamwork, sharing responsibilities, and clear communication. Students who led their group practiced decision-making, guiding others, and taking responsibility, strengthening their leadership skills.
Learning to value food – Students learned how to appreciate the value of food, avoid wasting ingredients, and responsibly discard packaging that is truly empty.

Learning by Doing

Hands-on experiences like cooking align perfectly with the IB philosophy of learning through inquiry and experience. In the Cooking Club, students are actively engaged, they ask questions, experiment, make mistakes, and learn from them. These experiences help bridge the gap between school learning and everyday life.

Skills for the Future

By introducing cooking at a young age, we empower students with skills they will use for a lifetime. Whether it’s preparing a simple meal, working as part of a team, leading a group, or taking responsibility for a task, these experiences contribute to shaping confident, capable, and balanced learners.

Our Cooking Club is just one of the many ways we support holistic education and help our students grow into well-rounded individuals, ready for the future, both inside and outside the classroom.

What We Cooked and Baked: Highlights from first Semester of Cooking Club: