Band 8.0 answer
I agree that schools should teach children to cook, not as a decorative extra but as a practical life skill whose absence has measurable consequences. The only real reservation is how much of an already crowded timetable it should occupy.
The case rests first on public health. Diets heavy in processed food are widely linked to rising childhood obesity, and a generation that has never prepared a meal from raw ingredients tends to default to whatever is quickest. Cooking lessons do not guarantee better choices, but they remove a common excuse: that healthy food is too complicated or too expensive to make. A pupil who has learned to turn a few vegetables, rice and a tin of beans into a nutritious meal has a lasting advantage over one who has not.
There is also an argument from equality. Pupils from well-off families are more likely to learn cooking at home, whereas those from households where both parents work long hours may never be taught. By providing the lessons to everyone, schools narrow a gap that would otherwise widen.
Sceptics reasonably point to the pressure on teaching time. Yet cooking need not displace academic subjects; it can reinforce them. Scaling a recipe is applied arithmetic, and understanding why bread rises is chemistry. A weekly session, integrated into existing courses, would cost little curriculum time while making abstract lessons tangible.
In sum, the benefits for health, equality and learning outweigh the modest cost, and cooking deserves a permanent, if limited, place in the curriculum.