Mainstream Outreach
Pop-up sensory cooking workshops inside mainstream secondaries, designed for SEND classes, EBSA recovery groups and Year 6 transition cohorts.
Outreach & expansion
The kitchen does not stop at our door.
Suffolk Sensory Kitchen exists primarily as a Tier 2 / Tier 3 Alternative Provision. But because the underlying issues we work with - adolescent dysregulation, food insecurity, ultra-processed dependence, screen saturation - are population-level, we deliberately run two further outreach streams that take the same model into families and mainstream schools. Together they form our growth roadmap across Suffolk.
Community Masterclasses
A planned future stream: evening sessions for families - typically parents and teenagers cooking side-by-side - focused on cost-of-living recipes, allergens, and the regulating power of a shared meal. Not yet running.
Mainstream school outreach
Pop-up sensory workshops, on your premises.
Where it is impractical for a young person to travel out of their setting, we will travel in. Mainstream school outreach is one to three sessions delivered inside a mainstream secondary, designed around a specific cohort identified by the SENCO.
The Sensory Cook
A 90-minute workshop for a SEND class or EBSA recovery group, delivered in your food room with low ambient noise, no spectators and a single recipe. Designed to be the first time some of these students have re-entered a school kitchen in weeks.
Year 6 Transition Taster
A two-session programme for the most vulnerable Year 6 cohort, delivered in the summer term, that takes them through one cook in their feeder secondary’s kitchen. We have seen this single, low-stakes, food-anchored visit make the difference between a confident September and a deteriorating one.
Staff inset - Trauma-informed Food Tech
A 60-minute CPD session for Food Tech, DT and pastoral teams, delivered by Kirsty Wilson, covering sensory adaptation, nervous-system-aware lesson planning and de-escalation in a kitchen environment.
Parent & carer evening
A 60-minute open evening at the host school for parents of the cohort, demystifying ultra-processed food, micro-budgeting and the gut-brain axis. Free of charge to the family; commissioned via the host school’s pupil premium or pastoral budget.
Community masterclasses (planned)
Evening sessions for the whole household.
We don't run evening masterclasses yet - this is a future stream we intend to add as we grow. Where the household is willing and able, the cheapest, fastest, most durable intervention for an adolescent who is struggling with food and mood is a family that knows how to cook a few real meals together. That is what these evening sessions will be for.
£10 family meal - live
A two-hour evening in which one parent or carer and one young person cook the £10 family meal challenge in real time, with a take-home bag of the ingredients to repeat it the next night.
Allergens, calmly
An evening for families where a young person has a recent allergy diagnosis, covering Natasha’s Law-aligned reading of labels, cross-contamination at home, and EpiPen confidence.
The Sunday Roast, decoded
A session pitched at families who have stopped eating together. We cook, we set the table, we eat - and we name, out loud, why this matters.
Food on a tight medication day
For households where a young person is on ADHD medication or has appetite suppression as a known side effect - calm, calorie-dense recipes that respect the medication rhythm.
Growth roadmap
Where we are heading next.
We are deliberately small. We will grow slowly. This is the published, board-agreed roadmap.
2026
Launch the Tier 2 / Tier 3 Alternative Provision in our founding kitchen, currently running as small AP sessions one day a week.
2026–27
Roll out mainstream outreach into named partner secondaries across Ipswich, Bury St Edmunds and the surrounding market towns.
2027
Open a second satellite kitchen serving north Suffolk (Lowestoft / Beccles corridor), commissioned in partnership with the relevant district.
2027–28
Pilot a Foundation Year 12 vocational extension for former placement students - a one-year transitional offer combining hospitality competency units with continued AP-style pastoral support.
2028+
Develop a fully accredited Suffolk Sensory Kitchen training franchise, allowing other counties to license the model with our quality assurance and audit.
Every milestone above is contingent on commissioning, on safeguarding capacity and on the directors’ shared commitment to never grow faster than our ability to keep a placement safe.
Interested in outreach for your school or community?
In-school workshops, future masterclasses and franchise enquiries all go to the same inbox. We respond within two working days.
Open the contact page →