THE linguistic and culinary skills of pupils from two North Ayrshire schools were recognised at a recent cookery competition.

Almost 50 students from across Scotland took part in the recent event at the City of Glasgow College.

St Winning’s Primary in Kilwinning won the P5-P7 category and St Bridget’s Primary in Kilbirnie won the P1-P4 category.

Lauren Gemmell, teacher at St Bridget’s Primary, said: “This has been a fantastic opportunity to learn Spanish in a new, exciting context. The pupils enjoyed working together as a team.”

Pupils from St Winning’s Primary also said: “This was a great day. It has been an amazing opportunity for us.”

The LinguaChef competition is a new partnership SCILT, Scotland’s National Centre for Languages, based at the University of Strathclyde, and City of Glasgow College.

It brings together languages and food, challenging primary and secondary school pupils to create an international dish from a country whose language they are learning in school, or which is spoken at home.

May Donald, Curriculum Head for Food at City of Glasgow College, said: “I jumped at the chance for our college to be part of this new and exciting competition and look forward to being involved again in the future.

“We are used to hosting high profile events, but this was one with a twist given the widely differing age ranges of the competitors.

“The contest also offered us an ideal oppor tunity to engage with potential future students as those taking part got to see round our incredible facilities at City campus, while some of our own students assisted on the day which provided a great learning experience for them.”

Angela de Britos , Development Officer at SCILT, added: “LinguaChef is a fantastic way of showcasing both the culinary and linguistic skills of pupils in pr imary and secondary schools across Scotland.

“We see this as an opportunity to have fun with food and languages whilst honing other important skills such as team-work, communication and IT.