It’s ridiculous to test teenagers with exams, says angry Ramsay

GORDON Ramsay believes school exams are “ridiculous”.

The celebrity chef loathes the pressure that GCSEs and SATs place on children.

Ramsay, 51, a father of four, was asked yesterday to offer some advice for young cooks.

He said: “I disagree with everybody being judged on one exam. That upsets me, because the pressure on youngsters today is ridiculous.

“I didn’t peak at 15 and I certainly didn’t peak at 12 and I certainly didn’t peak at 18.

“So governed – the way we are – with these ridiculous SATs and GCSEs and A-levels – I think it is wrong to judge individuals on what you can achieve at that time in life.”

Ramsay was speaking in New York. He went on to suggest learning to cook is completely different from school.

He said: “I didn’t do well at school but I did well at cooking.

“And so I’m grateful for the way I was pushed and I think pushing yourself from 11 is important.

“Kids being made to feel inadequate because they can’t study algebra, or they don’t understand how to spell Czechoslovakia by the time they’re 10 is dreadful. Cooking is a great way of experimenting and developing a character.

“And cooking with no fear is amazing. Baking is chemistry, so forget physics at school. If you can bake beautifully, *** the A-plus in physics.

“When I first went to Paris, I started as a baker, because I wanted to perfect bread and then it was the fougasse and then it was the pain poulane and I wanted to understand the chemistry.

“I see food as a canvas… as a way of painting yourself on a plate and bringing the best out of that level of creativity and having no fear.”