Find your place in the field of good food

Our goal is to connect good people with good food. We advertise sustainable food jobs and training opportunities to help jobseekers and employers find each other.

Roots to Work is a project of Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming.

Job description

Service Area: Education / Public Health

Programme: Food Education Network (FEN)

Location: Barking and Dagenham (school-based delivery)

Contract Type: Freelance

Salary: £250-£350 day rate, depending on experience

Working Pattern: Ad hoc, term-time delivery

Background

Barking and Dagenham Food Education Network is recruiting freelance chefs and community cooks to deliver practical food education workshops across primary schools in the borough.

Good nutrition supports children’s well-being and life chances. Our vision is for holistic, inclusive food education to be embedded across all schools in Barking and Dagenham, where cooking is recognised as a fundamental life skill and food is celebrated as an expression of culture and identity.

By connecting Barking and Dagenham schools with local chefs and community food champions, we aim to support and inspire creative and positive food curricula, support young people to understand the connection between healthy eating, healthy bodies, healthy minds and a healthy planet and to develop a positive relationship with food.

See our Schools page for more information about our school programmes and the B&D Food pages for information about our wider food work in Barking and Dagenham.

Role Purpose

Freelance Chef Educators will deliver engaging and practical cooking workshops in Barking and Dagenham primary school settings. This is aimed at local chefs and community cooks who will form part of a local Food Education Network, helping schools to ‘bring food education to life’.

 

Chefs Educators will receive:

• Free specialist training to prepare them for delivery in school environments
• Enhanced DBS clearance funded by LBBD

Training and Support

Chefs in the Barking and Dagenham Food Education Network will a training session to prepare them for classroom delivery.

Date: 4th March,

Time: 9am-12 midday

Location: Barking 

The training will support chefs to:

• Plan and structure school-ready food workshops
• Understand safeguarding, professional boundaries and working with children
• Classroom-based teaching, health, safety and food hygiene
• Guidance for working with childre
• Promote positive messages around healthy eating, sustainability and food origins
• Adapt delivery to suit different age groups, abilities and school facilities

Person Specification

We encourage anyone with a passion for supporting children with food skills to apply.

Desirable:

• Professional cooking experience as a chef, cook or food practitioner
• Ability to travel to schools across Barking and Dagenham
• Demonstrable experience in one or more of the following:
  • Education or training
  • Working with children
  • Mentoring or youth work
  • Community food projects
  • Voluntary or VCS sector cooking programmes
  • Strong communication skills and ability to engage children positively
• Experience delivering cooking or food education activities to children or young people
• Understanding of the primary school curriculum or enrichment provision
• Level 2 Food Safety and Hygiene qualification (or willingness to obtain)
• Experience working with diverse communities
• Interest in food careers education and vocational pathways

Equal Opportunities

The Barking and Dagenham Food Education Network is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion. We welcome applications from chefs of all backgrounds.

Application information

To apply to become a Chef Educator in the LBBD Food Education Network, please send a short expression of interest/cover letter outlining your experience and suitability for the role, along with a CV to lily.mcsweeney@lbbd.gov.uk with the subject line ‘Chef Educator Application’.

Please include a referee from previous employment, ideally within the last three years. Please include the referee’s name, job role, email and contact number.

Please mention Roots to Work when applying for these jobs