COOKERY lessons for children and their parents would be on the menu at a Worcester school if they were successful in our Cash for Schools competition.

Dines Green Primary School want to expand their food technology lessons to reach more children and their families before putting all the favourite recipes in a Dines Green School cookery book for the whole community to enjoy.

The Tudor Way school is on the shortlist of 30 schools that are eligible for a share of our £25,000 giveaway with Western Power Distribution.

But they need your votes to make their project come alive.

Headteacher Sara Longmire said: "It's about giving children the skills and the knowledge to be able to cook and also understand what they are putting into their bodies.

"We are doing a lot of work on how you need a balanced diet for your brain to work in the right way.

"Two classes currently are doing food technology lessons but we also want to involve parents in that.

"We want funding to run some cookery lessons for children and parents together and put the recipes into a cookery book so they can dip in it."

Mrs Longmire said the school wanted to help create a culture where the importance of nutrition and family meals was promoted.

She said: "These days it's very easy to bung something in a microwave but this is about understanding that the children need to be shown how to put things together, to learn patience by waiting for a cake to bake or to know how to make a good old fashioned shepherd's pie that you sit around the table and eat together.

"It's a way of bringing that back."

The school already has a kitchen but would spend any money it won from our competition on buying low level furniture and child-friendly kitchen equipment so more children and their families could be more involved.

Involving the children would be a major part of the project according to Mrs Longmire.

She said: "We want the children to come up with the ideas that they like then vote for their favourite ones to include in the cook book.

"Then they can teach their families what they've been doing at school."

You will find voting coupons in the paper every day for you to collect and send in to vote for your favourite projects.

Today's is on page 14.

You may send in as many coupons as you wish and vote for as many schools as you wish.

The school with the most votes will win the £5,000 top prize but the prize money will be shared between all 30 schools.