PARENTS have been cooking up a storm while kids get active in the gym hall at a Port Glasgow primary school.

Newark Primary has been running the ‘sports tea’ event over the last few weeks in partnership with Active Schools and Barnardo’s.Every week parents have come in to cook a variety of speciality of dishes from all over the world.

Polish mum Magada Kopijka, whose 10-year-old son Mikolaj attends the school, was in charge this week.

She said: “I was asked by the head teacher if I would come in to prepare some traditional Polish food.”

The 39-year-old was showing staff how to make bigos stew, with pork, tomato sauce and sauerkraut and potato dumplings and waffles, served up with seasonal fruits.

(Image: George Munro) She said: “I have lived here for nine years, I love Port Glasgow, I’ve never had any problem here.

“I feel very much part of the community, I have lovely neighbours and work colleagues.”

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Kim Guthrie, catering manager, was also enjoying the lesson, saying: “It’s great to get to try out new recipes. The food is really good.”

Primary 3 teacher Lesley-Ann Docherty added: “This is my first week. Some of my pupils are at the session so I thought I’d stay behind.

(Image: George Munro) “I’ve really enjoyed it. I’ve been making waffles and they smell amazing.”

Depute head teacher Lisa McGroarty said the sessions had been well received.

She said: “We’ve had Ukrainian, Brazilian, Indian and Italian food.

“The whole idea was to reach out to our community, and it is something that we would like to continue in the future.

(Image: George Munro)

(Image: George Munro)

“We always had our traditional sports tea which aims to offer pupils extra-curricular activities that pupils might not have access to before, before while at the same time offering advice and help to parents through Barnardo’s family learning support.

“Over the last few weeks we have parents in cooking between 2pm and 3pm, with one parent staying behind in the kitchen.

“Then we have family learning sessions. Today we had a session for Sleep Scotland and next week we will have a visit from Heart Start Inverclyde.”

(Image: George Munro) Mrs McGroarty said the school also had plans to become a School of Sanctuary this session and to produce a cookbook.

She said: “We’re trying to dovetail everything. These sessions aim to bring everyone together, with Active Schools and family support, and then we all sit down and eat together.

“It’s been a great success.”