Food
Food is essential for life, and learning to cook and eat healthy is a life skill. Knowledge they learn in school will enable our students to make the right choices to maintain healthy bodies and minds in adulthood.
It is all too easy not to make good food choices with many challenges such as busy family lives, lack of parental cooking skills, abundance of ready meals, takeaways and cheap processed foods that are nutritionally lacking. However it is more nutritious and often cheaper to cook simple nutritious food.
We aim to give our students vital life skills that enable them to feed themselves and others affordably and nutritiously, now and later in life. We want them to learn about ingredients and cooking techniques in a supportive and nurturing environment, where it is ok to make mistakes, to learn from those mistakes and so build resilience.
In Food we follow the guidelines of the National Curriculum. We teach students about the importance of a balanced diet and nutrition for good health. Knowledge is built in Key Stage 3 and developed in more detail during Key Stage 4. At Key Stage 4 health and nutrition forms a large part of our GCSE course and we look at nutrition following the six food commodity groups and at different life stages, special diets and requirements. Students learn to cook a range of dishes predominantly savoury, but some sweet and gradually increasing the levels of skills and cooking techniques through the years. Students are encouraged to cook with and try new foods, through demonstrations and discussion and learn the importance of seasonality and sustainability.
Year 7 Food
Students starting in year 7 will learn the foundations of food hygiene and food safety in the kitchen, safe use of a range of equipment, such as knives, kettles, hobs and ovens and the basics of healthy eating through the Eatwell Guide. Knife skills and simple learnt techniques are demonstrated in varied practical lessons.
Year 8 Food
In year 8, students build on learnt skills, to progressively more difficult skills, making shortcrust pastry and a dough, shaping and baking and coating, adapting recipes, analysing unhealthy diets, handling raw meat, and food poisoning prevention.
Year 9 Food
Students in year 9 are introduced to key topics from the GCSE Food Preparation and nutrition. These include food provenance, sustainability, seasonality, food waste, packaging, food choice, a food science investigation and more detailed nutrition theory and diet through life. Students work independently and in some group situations including a Masterchef task. Dishes in year 9 will include popular and cultural dishes such as curry, burger, and swiss roll.
GCSE Food (Year 10 & 11)
We follow the WJEC EDUQAS curriculum, which is well received by our students. They enjoy the range of skills and foods we ask them to provide to cook. The majority of content is covered in Year 10 through the 6 food commodity groups, one every half term; Fruits and Vegetables, Dairy ( Milk cheese and Yoghurt), Cereals, Meat, poultry and fish, Fats and Oils, Beans, seed and meat alternatives. The order in which they are delivered is generally the same every year, with some variability depending on visiting speakers & chefs.
Within each food commodity, students will learn classifications, uses, provenance, processing, storage, spoilage, hygiene, effects of heat, nutrition, diet and related food science ( such as coagulation in proteins/meat, enzymic browning in fruit and veg. gelatinisation of starches in Cereals). Practical dishes are matched with each commodity to demonstrate uses of the ingredients studied and to learn a range of 20 key skills as required by the exam board. These include simmering, boiling, glazing, shaping, coating, batters, doughs, pastry, reduction sauce, roux sauce, piping, whisking, filleting and portioning, poaching, steaming, grilling, frying, emulsions and marinating.
Students also practice food science investigations in year 10, once per half term whenever possible - planning, conducting, collecting and displaying data and understanding hypotheses and sensory analysis and writing detailed evaluations. End of unit assessments are conducted at the end of each food unit. In readiness for Year 11, students all complete a mock NEA2 assessment in the summer term of year 10. Following a given brief, they are to research, trial, plan, cook and evaluate. They have to cook 2 suitable and skilled dishes and accompaniments in a 2 hour exam. Marking is completed following exam board guidelines and most recent grade boundaries.
In Year 11 students will complete the required NEA 1 and NEA 2 assessments, majority in lesson time with the exception of the compulsory 3 hrs examination element for both. After submission of marks to the exam board at the end of April/start of May students then prepare for the summer written exam, through a range of revision activities and practice exam questions.
