THEY look like they are preparing to become the youngest boys ever to swim the channel. In fact, the goggle-eyed trio in our photograph are simply readying themselves for cookery class.

Tricky business, dicing an onion. Even hard-hearted restaurant chefs, of the sort we see undergoing an attack of the bleeped-out vapours on TV, are reduced to tears by this humble dome.

But the children at Pocklington Montessori School have found that the goggles make for much happier chopping. After one of their culinary triumphs, there is not a wet eye in the house.

Updated: 11:04 Friday, November 12, 2004