The vast majority of Suffolk schools will be “very ready” to implement new cookery classes and healthy eating lessons when the new national curriculum is introduced next year.

That’s the view of one senior advisor from Suffolk County Council’s Learning and Improvement Service.

Celia Moore, learning and improvement advisor for personal and social development at the council, said schools had been given 12 months to prepare for the change to the guidelines and it was a change that had been expected for some time.

She welcomed the move but said that the growing number of free schools and academies in Suffolk would not be obliged to follow the national curriculum as they are able to make their own arrangements.

She said: “I welcome the introduction - but of course not all schools use the national curriculum.

“I think the vast majority of schools will be very ready. It doesn’t happen until 2014 and I’m sure the schools will be spending this next year doing exactly that (getting ready).”

She said she hoped schools would do “exactly what it says on the tin” and not just teach cooking, but help children all about healthy eating.

She added: “Schools are very able to get in touch with the Learning Improvement Service to look at their bespoke needs. Schools will work within their pyramids and clusters and it will be up to them.”

Yesterday the EADT told how all local authority schools will be required to teach sessions about cooking and the benefits of eating healthily to pupils up to year nine.

A Department for Education spokesman said the aim was to encourage children to develop “a love of food, cooking and healthy eating” that would stay with them as they grow up.

He said: “That is why for the first time ever we are making food and nutrition a compulsory part of the curriculum at key stages two and three, while teachers will also have the freedom to explain food production under the new design and technology curriculum.”

In Suffolk, after encouragement from the DfE, community interest company Cook With Me Kids, which holds school cooking days and farm visits, has prepared a scheme called the Anglian Food Education plan.