'Happy Meals' Competition Winners Announced

The 'Happy Meals' competition encouraged Stamford families to cook and share the dishes that made them smile through lockdown during February 2021.There were a phenomenal amount of varied entries showing an incredible amount of hard work from each of the pupils involved. Please enjoy viewing all of their entries here.The hard task of judging was undertaken by Sarah Delaney, parent of children at the Schools and Leith's trained chef, and Simon Spooner, parent and award winning chef, who appeared on BBC's Masterchef 2018.Simon and Sarah said: "Thank you for inviting us to judge the Happy Meals competition, we were both delighted to help and what a difficult decision we had to make! There were so many fantastic entries, such a lot of effort and imagination and ALL the competitors displayed a real love of food and cooking. We are both fortunate enough to work with food, and know that the one thing you need to make your food taste great is passion - all the children showed a real passion for cooking and producing tasty food and that is fabulous."We both looked through the entries separately and came up with our favourites, and our decisions were unanimous."

Winner: Poppy

"Our winner is Poppy D. We were both super impressed by the sentiment behind her dishes, cooked by her for her parents on Valentine’s Day - cooking is a way of showing love and Poppy really displayed this."Her pasta dish wasn’t complicated but looked delicious, her ingredients shone through and we both felt we’d love to try this dish. Her tiramisu looked yummy and it was so nice to see recipes being passed down from older generations."We loved how they reminded her of friends and of holidays, something we could all do with at the moment! Well done Poppy! We’re very envious of all the pupils who will get to try your dishes at lunchtime and we are sure your parents are thrilled to have such a competent chef in the house!"

Runner Up: Freddie

"Our runner up is Freddie M. We loved reading about how his favourite book, The Gruffalo, had inspired his frog muffins and fox sandwiches! They looked absolutely delicious and would delight children of all ages. It’s great to see such a young child enjoying food and cooking and being so proud of the final result- well done Freddie, perhaps next time you could make some Owl biscuits or Snake sausage rolls?!  Both Poppy and Freddie have received vouchers to spend with local businesses as their prizes. Their dishes will be adapted with the help of Mrs P Hudson, Catering Manager, and her team, to be shared as an option on the lunch menus at School. Teacher's ChoiceHead of Food and Nutrition, Mrs K Wilson, and Head of Sixth Form, Mrs C Hawkins, selected which dish would receive the 'Teacher's Choice Award'. This was presented to Freya and Immy P and will also be adapted for the School lunch menu. 

Highly Commended

Very well done to Shreyansh M, for his Panner Tikka, and Riley and Blake O'S, for their three course meal, who have been awarded highly commended certificates.

 Very well done to all of the students who sent in their creative and inspiring entries!