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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Bloody school cookery!!!

139 replies

mrsshears · 30/11/2011 15:22

DD has just announced that she needs all the ingredients for this for tomorrow,as i think is standard with most teenagers.
so we have just rushed to the supermarket to get everything,dd then produces the booklet from school which lists everything in ounces and pints etc erm i thought we were now working in mls and grammes ?? and then tells me i have to send a dish into school to cook it in and weigh out all the ingredients at home before hand! why the hell don't we just cook the thing at home!!! AIBU?

OP posts:

OldLadyKnowsSantaClaus · 30/11/2011 15:24

YANBU, send her in with the finished article tomorrow.

StaceymAloneForver · 30/11/2011 15:26

YANBU at all, thats ridiculous!

KittyFane · 30/11/2011 15:31

Did you do cooking at school OP?
This is normal.
They take the correct quantity of ingredients and a dish to cook it in.
No point taking a massive block of cheese to school ( for example) if they only need a small amount.
We did this at school 30+ years ago. Not much has changed.

KittyFane · 30/11/2011 15:32

Look at the weighing out bit as relevant homework.

busybusybust · 30/11/2011 15:33

I can't believe this is STILL going on!!!

It happened when I was at school in the 60s! (But at least everything was in ounces and pints in those days!)

I never understood why the cookery teacher didn't buy the ingreidents and charge the children for them.

johnthepong · 30/11/2011 15:35

Hello Im a food tech teacher.
Agree the booklet should have grams and ml (we usually give both) but please please do not weigh out or prepare her ingredients for her. That is her job.
Nothing more frustrating than a child who dosnt know what is what because mum has weighed everything out for them. They dont learn anything.
As for providing a dish- how do you expect your child to bring their food home??!!

johnthepong · 30/11/2011 15:37

As for why I dont buy ingredients- because it takes an inordinate amount of time to buy and prepare ingredients for a whole class- we have a part time technician and she dont have time either. I might have 5 practical lessons in 1 day- when would I be preparing ingredients? Also we dont have the storage space at school to store that quantity of ingredients.
Also you can bring in variations to the recipe and change things according to preferance.

SantasStrapon · 30/11/2011 15:40

She's a teenager, she should be shopping for, and weighing out her own ingredients.

KittyFane · 30/11/2011 15:41

busybusy Part of cooking is shopping for ingredients and weighing them out. Our DC should not have ingredients bought by food teacher or weighed out by someone else.
Putting together pre-weighed stuff is as bad as the Mary Berry Christmas cake ingredients pack I bought today doesn't teach them much.

starfishmummy · 30/11/2011 15:42

Ds goes to special school and the school provide the ingredients for a very small charge, though i think they share as just one or two things come home. This term they are without a specialist teacher and the art teacher is doubling up. So far Ds has made biscuits or flashbacks every week, so guessing cookery is not this guys forte!

plainwhitet · 30/11/2011 15:44

I must admit I have been amazed at what my dd has had to produce for school cookery. How on earth do people on a tight budget or unable to shop on a specific day manage? Why don't two pupils share some ingredients too? eg half a tin of this, one stick of celery, two spoons of that, 50 g sachet of something that came only in a big box. I asked her what the children do if they have not brought the ingredients and apparently they just sit and watch. Must be a tricky lesson to manage ...

KittyFane · 30/11/2011 15:44

Also John how would the shopping bill be paid? Working out money would be another job. IME, not all parents willingly pay for things to do with school.

mumto2andnomore · 30/11/2011 15:46

My DD is in Y8 at a big secondary school and all she has to take to cooking lessons is an apron and tub to bring whatever she makes home in. Think we pay £15 a year to cover ingredients/materials for art and DT.

KittyFane · 30/11/2011 15:46

One of the most difficult to teach IMO.

Fuzzywuzzywozabear · 30/11/2011 15:46

my ds weighs all his own ingredients - he wanted to take cookery so it's his responsibility

KittyFane · 30/11/2011 15:48

Do all parents pay mumto2?

johnthepong · 30/11/2011 15:49

I do sometimes provides some ingredients that perhaps they might not use up the rest of, e.g. yeast, and then charge them for it. But only rarely. I do suggest to kids that they could share stuff, e.g. 2 spoons of this etc but I am not going to sort it out for them- they are old and ugly enough to do that sort of negotiations themselves.
Parents who have financial problems/ free school meals kids I will buy their ingredients for - but still make the child come before school/break time to weigh it all out.

bonkersLFDT20 · 30/11/2011 15:49

YABU! This is normal. I tell my DS (year 8) that I can make sure we have the ingredients in the house only if he gives me about three days notice. If he tells me the night before, then he has to face the consequences of maybe not having what he needs or hope that our local garage/shop has it.

They have to weight it all out at home because otherwise it would take them all lesson to prepare the ingredients. How long does it take you to bake something from scratch, I mean from before even opening the cupboards to get out what you need? More than an hour I bet.

TroublesomeEx · 30/11/2011 15:51

All the preparation done at home is still part of the learning, so long as the child does it and not the parent.

DS knows to give me the shopping list in plenty of time, and then he does the weighing etc himself.

There's no way they'd have time to do all of it at school.

stuffthenonsense · 30/11/2011 15:54

ooh you got off lightly, my DD (13) made shepherds pie on monday...she had to find her own recipe (no problem with that) and the mash was to be made AT HOME before the lesson? wth? its a 1 hour 40 minute lesson...its EASY to do it all in that time.
i think standards are definately slipping...my cookery lessons when i was 11 involved chicken fricassee, fish au gratin, yule log etc etc, and classes were 1 hr 10 mins, we still managed it all....and back then (oh lordy i am so old, this was 1984) a proper cookery basket, with frilly cover, was part of the school 'uniform'

HazleNutt · 30/11/2011 15:54

I'm pretty sure the school didn't tell to yout DD "and your mum has to weigh the ingredients". She must have misunderstood.

CarefullyAirbrushedPotato · 30/11/2011 15:59

"Ds has made biscuits or flashbacks every week"
the mental images I'm getting are priceless

LaurieFairyCake · 30/11/2011 16:04

The issue I have with it is cost - they made pineapple cake last year requiring each child to bring in a whole pineapple at £3 each as it was out of season.

Massive waste, environmentally unfriendly, stupidly expensive.

Oh and the fruit salad they made last year - MUST contain strawberries or raspberries - again expensive, out of season, environmentally unfriendly.

This is not how the majority of the world cooks or eats.

KittyFane · 30/11/2011 16:05

stuff I loved my basket with frilly cover!! :o

Hopstheduck · 30/11/2011 16:09

lauriefairycake, didn't you get the rest of the pineapple back?

I much prefer sending in the ingredients. DS1 got charged £4 for ingredients and made the most mankiest looking chicken kebabs I have ever seen. The chicken was shrivelled up! I could have given him decent quality ingredients from home for far less cost.

DD takes ingredients and I've switched and changed a bit if I dont have the ingredients. I remember sending in polenta rather than semolina, and her cakes were the tastiest in class

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