West Berkshire schools enjoy breakfast club with Newbury and District Agricultural Society's Buttercup the wooden cow
A wooden cow called Buttercup has been helping to spread the word about healthy breakfasts to schoolchildren across the district.
Education officer at the Newbury and District Agricultural Society Jan Murray has been taking her trusty sidekick along to a number of breakfast club events at primary schools in West Berkshire this month.
“It went extremely well,” she said. “The children were very, very enthusiastic and very engaged.
“They thoroughly enjoyed tasting the breakfasts and milking Buttercup.
“Hopefully we get the message across that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
“This is the 12th year of the event and it is very, very popular, which is great.”
Hopefully we get the message across that breakfast is the most important meal of the day
Jan Murray
It is so popular, in fact, that there is already a waiting list for next year’s sessions, which are hosted annually for free by the society.
The workshops are run over the course of three weeks in January and have reached around 450 primary school pupils.
They give children the chance to learn how to milk the cow, they get to help make porridge and smoothies and then they also get to plant their own little pot of seeds.
They can plant either oats, which help make the porridge; wheat, which are in other cereals; or barley, which the children are told is used by the farmer to feed the cows.#
“We teach them that not only is porridge very healthy and nutritious, but it’s very cheap too,” added Mrs Murray.
“We also teach them that breakfast helps them concentrate throughout the day.”
She thanked Waitrose, which supported the workshops by providing the fresh juices she used in the smoothies.
The society runs a number of educational workshops and events throughout the year, including a potato challenge, which is launched in March, and an autumn-themed event in October.
November sees Mrs Murray running a British Sausage Week workshop, where pupils have the chance to make and taste sausages, hear a talk about where the meat comes from and get to meet Buttercup’s friend – Rasher the wooden pig.
The society also runs a cookery school for secondary pupils and the annual Ploughing Match includes a number of events aimed at children.
Scroll down to see all the photos from all the schools visited by our photographer Phil Cannings.
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