To expect to at least be able to eat what dd2 has cooked, seeing as it cost me £10 for the stuff ??

[TheOriginalNutcracker]

ARGH bloody cooking lessons.

Dd2 was doing chicken tikka. So, £10 of ingrediants later and off to school she trots.

She's just come home and said that they couldn't get the lid to fit on her tupperware container and so the teacher is just going to chuck it. The lid does bloody fit, it's just stiff and surely the teacher had something else that dd could have used if not.

£10 down the drain, just like that.

[LineRunner]

I think it would be lovely if the DCs could take in 5p or 10p or 20p to access a spoonful or two of an ingredient from a general store of gloopy stuff that's hard to transport or ridiculous to buy for just one spoonful.

If the lessons are too short, and there are too many children, and the recipes are unfeasible, and too many children are not taking in ingredients or the money in anyway, then, frankly, why bother?

Or at least just provide lentils, onions and stock and teach the class to make soup.

[maybeyoushoulddrive]

Great post LineRunner

I think it sounds like teachers like Reastie are few and far between. Meanwhile a lot of money and time is being wasted in many schools...

[quirrelquarrel]

Our Food lessons were ridiculous. We all loved them. But they were useless.
First it wasn't healthy. So we had the gluelike macaroni, white pasta and tons of value cheese etc with no veg in sight. I don't think I've ever really eaten white pasta before.
My friend once put 3 buds of garlic in for "three cloves" in the recipe. Teacher saunters past, "all right girls?" and doesn't say anything....
Then "design your own cake". Which was just making a sponge, which we then froze until next week, and then decorating it- with sweets bien sur.
Then a term of videos about keeping clean with Milton spray.
We had to follow very specific rules about washing up yeah maybe some of the people in my class had never washed up before, but I'd been doing it since I could reach the sink properly and I didn't much like being told off for using a scrubby brush instead of a rag caked in dried batter from the previous class.

[psychomum5]

I would expect to be able to eat it.

All my three girls have done food tech at school. Two as GCSE (DD3 is still yr9 so not quite in GSCE mode yet, but I think she will also follow her sisters into taking it as an exam). Their ingredients cost me a small fortune and I fully expected it to be bought home and sampled.

I got cross when they teacher gave them a recipe that calls for dairy to be used, and as half of us are dairy allergic, she didn;t allow for tweaking. That is wasteful IMHO, and in these days of money and food being tight, was worthy of complaint. She now allows dairy-free cooking for my DD3, and even helps ensure the area to be used it wiped very very clean.

It is not okay to teach them to be wasteful of food.

and to quote the words I grew up with.....'think of all the starving africans'

[SaggyOldClothCatPuss]

Did you see this thread that I started a while back about this?
My record is about £25 on ingredients! This was also curry, except we had to buy about 20 individual ingredients!

[happyinherts]

Nightmare lessons. Just not practical and very, very expensive.

I had to draw the line at my daughter's attempts to take so many mls of water to school - do they not have taps with running water at school? Tablespoons of golden syrup, flour, sugar, all in different containers in school bag.

And dont even think about practicalities of trying to master a casserole dish of family evening tea on a crowded school bus, train and walk home. First subject to drop for gcse - try and teach your youngsters at home, anything has to be better than this

[pantaloons]

I remember my first Food tech lesson in year 6. We made a cheesecake type base with choc digestives and marg, then topped it with pink Angel Delight and hundreds and thousands!

What a life changing, informative lesson that was!

[londongirlatheart]

I saved the tiny jam jars you get with cream teas to use for things like oil. My DC is still doing food tech in sixth form - nightmare! My bug bear is that the teachers think you that you have nothing better to than go rushing of to the supermarket. Never know the ingredients in time for the weekend food shop - spent many an weekday evening rushing off to buy food. My DC is a vegetarian so just left meat out of the recipe - either used Quorn or extra veg.

[InSPsFanjoNoOneHearsYouScream]

My mum was on about this today. My brother came home with a list of ingredients for a Potatoe Curry

List included curry paste
Curry leaves
Chopped fresh coriandar

Plus others.

[lovelyladuree]

Having worked in schools, and helped to run a cookery club, there is absolutely no way I would eat what comes out of tech/cookery rooms. You have no idea what those kids get up to. Do buy the cheapest ingredients. Share jars, spices etc with other mums. They are just tools for the lesson. Do Not Eat.

[AnnoyingOrange]

My ds1's state school provide the ingredients for the lessons. Pupils are allowed to bring in toppings etc if they so choose

He made curry once and gave it to a friend. Also fruit salad and pizza can't remember other stuff

[MoominmammasHandbag]

Well we are in the minority here because my kids food tech lessons have been pretty good. They've progressed through French bread pizza and fruit salad to fairly decent chicken curry and absolutely delicious strawberry cheesecake.
I like to cook and keep a good store cupboard of spices etc so I've rarely had to buy anything I wouldn't normally use. Ingredients are put straight in the fridge when they get to school and the finished item retrieved from the fridge at the end of the day. I would of course be careful about thoroughly reheating stuff, but we have always eaten what has been brought home.
Is our food tech department really that exceptional?

[MoominmammasHandbag]

Well we are in the minority here because my kids food tech lessons have been pretty good. They've progressed through French bread pizza and fruit salad to fairly decent chicken curry and absolutely delicious strawberry cheesecake.
I like to cook and keep a good store cupboard of spices etc so I've rarely had to buy anything I wouldn't normally use. Ingredients are put straight in the fridge when they get to school and the finished item retrieved from the fridge at the end of the day. I would of course be careful about thoroughly reheating stuff, but we have always eaten what has been brought home.
Is our food tech department really that exceptional?

[quirrelquarrel]

pantaloons lifechanging haha!

[princesssugar]

Im a food teacher as well and to be honest the food teacher in the op's school is either v lazy or not a qualfied foodie. I cant believe any teacher would sebd home a recipe that required 3 chicken breasts, urely she could have divided all ingredients by 3 and made a smaller amount? Another one who gives food lessons a bad name.

I charge 7.50 per year ( have said this on another thread) and we provide everything but meat and sweets. If i was doing a curry it would be a veg one with the option of chicken if the pupils wanted it. Everything that comes out of my kitchen is edible ( with the exception of bread i will even taste what the kids cook if they ask as i know kids can be safe and hygenic if taught properly - bread is just mauled too much even for me) i work in a hugely deprived area - some times the meal they cook is the only hot meal they will eat all day (kebab meat and chips is the staple diet - over 50% of my year 7s couldnt identify a pear.

Op i think you need to complain to your school that is not cooking. I would guess you dd is year 9 she should be doing more than assembling.

Oh and to the poster ho said you weret supposed to eat the food - nonsense. A huge proportion of the assessment criteria is about identifying improvements and showing the difference they would make in the product how can you do that without tasting it?

[Scholes34]

DS2 is in year 9 and produced a very nice Cottage pie which we ate for tea tonight. We provided a casserole dish with lid, but it still came home with cling film on top.

I would have been absolutely livid if my child's cooking had been thrown away. YANBU.

Our school has some ingredients you can opt to buy from them - mainly store cupboard items you might not necessarily have - and also foil tins if, for example, a flan is being made. It would be a good idea to approach the school and suggest they might do something similar. Over the years I've accumulated loads of empty film cannisters, which are excellent for herbs, other seasonings and oil.

Have just tucked into an Eccles Cake I made last night - I learnt to make them in cookery classes at school (many) years ago. Haven't yet had a child in KS3 produce flaky pastry.

Forget school cookery - just get the kids to watch the Great British Bake-off instead.

[theroseofwait]

I'm a Food Tech teacher and I have asked for both a tablespoon of golden syrup and fresh coriander within the past week. This is because I have tried and tested more recipes than I care to think about over the past 12 years and that is what the best chic chip cookie and chicken curry recipes respectively use.

We do not have a technician and I do not have time to shop for and weigh out ingredients for 22 classes of 25 kids a week. I used to provide spices and the like but we have just seen our budget slashed by 40 percent and when I tried supplying students with black treacle and allspice in October for Xmas cake, only about 3 brought in any money despite prior warning and a note home.

I have also made students do written work when they are an egg missing but that was purely because we had no eggs to give out.

You may be getting hacked off with Food Tech but it's a nightmare when students come in saying they've got no scales at home etc. and parents don't send in suitable containers or the correct ingredients. I don't make anything at school that I don't make at home for my own family, and I would no sooner make something like cheese and potato pie than fly to the moon!

[theroseofwait]

Schoolers, I did rough puff with my year 9s last week! It's getting nearer Christmas now so it'll be making Christmas pudding, marzipan, icing Christmas cakes, making chocolate truffles and then a simple chutney if we have time, and then back to flaky pastry in the new year!

[theroseofwait]

Scholes, sorry, bloody iPad!

[Scholes34]

Well done, Rose. I really do feel food tech is an undervalued lesson at school, but so many children enjoy doing it. I did o level, and that's where I learnt shortcrust and flaky pastry, whisked, creamed, melting and rubbed in method cakes, arrowroot glazes, marzipanning and flat-icing and piping Christmas cakes, bread-making and more. My children have been enthused by GBBOff and have made lots from this series.

Keep up the good work. We parents have the responsiblity to ensure our DCs have the correct ingredients and containers, and in turn we look to the school to choose sensibly the recipes to follow.

[sashh]

That's not a propper chicken tikka. The school should be ashamed.

[princesssugar]

Yup we also do rough puff in year 9 and shortcrust in year 8, althought have been known to do it in year 8 with able groups

If the parent doesnt pay at the beginning of the year we charge per lesson which maks it easier to manage. We too have seen huge budget cuts overthe past few years and if cameron and gove get there way it will be out of the regular curiculum all together in a couple of years, relagated to special days throughout the year or some such nonsense. But when you here stories like the op it is difficult to argue for sustainability.

[theroseofwait]

Scholes Thanks, I've actually bought the GBBO book to use as a bit of a course text! The kids love it. . . .

Right, must go and crack on, my form will be in any second. . . . . .

[gymboywalton]

i think it's outrageous nutcrackr-really bad and i would be complaining vociferously to the school.

my son made lasagne the other week-he brought it home, we cooked it and had it for our evening meal-it was delicious. that is what SHOULD be happenig.

[Hydrophilic]

Food tech is a waste of space in the school curriculum as currently taught. I don't think I made a single healthy meal when I did it. We made cheese on toast(!), pizzas, "fish pie" that was white sauce mixed with tuna with mash on top. Bleurgh.

One term we just made scones. We had to adapt them, but weren't allowed anything fun like chocolate. I added cherry yoghurt and produced something that both looked and tasted vile. And then we had to run with that recipe and produce it week after week.

You know what food tech taught me? Feck all. I'll google a recipe and havn't eaten cherry youghurt since. Surely it would be better to teach cheap, healthy meal planning.