FIFTY children from 10 local schools gathered at Everton Football Club yesterday to learn about healthy cooking – with the help of an England goalkeeper.

The pupils from Sefton were the first to experience Let’s Get Cooking, a new national programme financed with a £20m Big Lottery Fund grant.

It will involve 1,000 schools across England, which will set up cooking clubs for three years.

Rachel Brown, the Everton FC and England goalkeeper, joined the children in the fun cooking event.

She has been working for Liverpool’s Healthy School Bus, a bus converted into classrooms, for three years. It teaches pupils skills such as tasting and balanced diet lessons.

“There is a difference between knowing what you should eat and knowing how to prepare it,” she said.

“I’m really excited about Let’s Get Cooking and more than happy to come along today and help out.

“This is a fantastic opportunity for schools and communities to understand how much fun and how sociable cooking can be.”

She hopes to act as a role model and help children make a change in their lifestyle.

Pupils were energetically chopping, peeling and seasoning vegetables at yesterday’s gathering.

For Bethan, 9, from Lander Road Primary School, making smoothies is “very fun”, even though she finds it “a little bit difficult” to cut fruits with very sharp knives. Other pupils, making an elaborate fruity chicken salad, hoped they could now cook for their parents.

Teenagers seem to appreciate this learning experience as much as their younger schoolmates.

Ashley and Megane, 15, from Greenbank high school, who were cooking a vegetarian chilli, say they are now considering becoming professional chefs.

For Dawn Leonard, one of the organisers, this is not just about having fun.

The former scientist, who specialised in cancer research, saw it as an opportunity to teach a whole generation how to eat properly. She studied how diet can affect diseases and would like children to be able to control how much fat or sugar they eat.

“My generation can’t cook; people depend on processed food,” she said.

She thinks the cooking programme will give children the skills and confidence to cook healthy meals.

“It will hopefully affect their parents’ behaviour, too, because children’s enthusiasm is contagious and, if they’re able to do it, everybody can,” she said.

The other schools participating in the event were the Thornton, Netherton Moss, Beach Rd Community, Hatton Hill, Thomas Gray, Norwood and Holy Trinity primary schools, as well as St Wildrid’s Catholic High School.