about Food Tech? And the cost?

[AlwaysInBed]

I think Food Tech is way too expensive.

DD's first term of doing Food Tech (she missed a term and a half of school last year, due to a serious illness, so missed a term of Food Tech) is next term. Today we got sent out the recipes/ingredients osit (why now?) and we can't afford it, end of.

AIBU to think there should be a way of receiving financial support? Alternatively, in each class, every student pays in x amount and then people receiving (for example, FSM, tax credits, etc;) don't have to pay as much or anything.

There's £5 worth of ingredients, roughly, per project, and cooking is once every two weeks. How does that work out? I will end up having to get food off my mother, who's not exactly well off either, but for many people, their mother isn't an alternative. What do they do?

It wasn't part of the printed instructions, you see. Apparently using your own initiative is frowned on in food tech. You may not variate from the printed instructions.

She snuck a bay leaf into her sausage casserole as well. That got her marked down on her work.

She doesn't do food tech anymore.

In my day, the school bought everything and we paid 50p or whatever to cover costs. That way everyone had the same. Tis was in 1996 though.

Seriously every chef on tv say to check seasoning/add more lemon/sugar/cream or whatever to taste!! There's natural variation with ingredients it's never as simple as 1tsp with seasoning you add it to taste. Ffs.

My dd wont deviate from the printed sheet either, although Im not sure if thats the schools instructions or just normal 'teenage girl cant be different from anyone else attitude'
To be fair to our school,food tech is the last two periods of the day and if her and her friends havent scoffed the lot on the way home we do normally eat what she makes with a few exemptions but i dont reheat.

At DD's school everything is stored in fridges and they deliver food to the food tech dept before school and collect it at 3.15

I would object to bulk purchasing because as a strictly vegetarian family we'd end up subsidising meat eaters, and I wouldn't be able to check that every ingredient was suitable. As DD always adapted recipes to suit our diet, it rarely cost much for us to supply what she needed, and if something wasn't suitable / too expensive / not to our tastes, she took slightly different ingredients. She also changed the recipe if she thought it needed it based on mine and DH's 54 years of veggie cooking between us!)

We pay £25 in first year for our children. They cook once a fortnight, get all containers and ingredients included in that. Head of year says she regrets having to charge but on the little amount of money the department gets, she could offer a wide variety of cooking such as fajita's, soup, baking, bolognaise.

Dd has taken it as a choice (S2 chose subjects this year) and it's £22 a term. She cooks/bakes twice a week. I'm very impressed with how much actual cooking she's done like chili, carbonara, quiche, soup, pasties as well as tarts, cakes, scones. All containers to bring it home is included.

I'm pretty shocked at what I've heard others say about their child being asked to take ingredients in and in some cases ready made fajita's packs etc. My dd's school teach from scratch and what spices to use etc.

Oh and they have fridges, the class leave them to cool and the teacher pops them in the fridge once they are cool. If they don't collect they get a punishment exercise and if it happens again a phone call home.

Dd worried about doing Home Ec because of the cost but her dad and I told her that was our worry and not hers. Usually manage to save £1 coins in a piggy bank over the term for the following term.

Complete pain in the arse. I was really annoyed last year when they were supposed to make veg stew. Because I didn't have time to shop anywhere else, I bought the ingredients at the co-op. It came to over ten quid. They then changed their mind and said they were making buns instead that week. Livid.

Had to laugh this term when they made french bread pizza. Baguette, tomato puree and cheese. You need teaching to make this? It's cheese on toast with puree! And they'd already made pizza earlier in the term and made the base from scratch.

And three of the recipes were basically buns. (if you can tell me the significant difference between butterfly buns and chocolate cake I'll be impressed).

So glad food tech is over for this year.

F a child is on fsm the school have to provide ingredients! I'm a tech teacher and a child should not be held back at a key subject due to cost! Definitely bring it up with the teacher if you are struggling! Usually they can help with making it discrete at the same time

I sometimes teach food tech and it varies from school to school. It can be done very well and very badly.

Most schools I've worked in wouldn't be able to bulk buy, as ingredients then need weighing out, with an hour lesson there wouldn't be time to do that and cook anything very challenging.

Remember there are approx 20 children of mixed ability and unlikely to be 20 sets of scales. I think many parents under estimate what can realistically be achieved within the timeframe of a lesson.

Most schools are woefully ill equipped for storing food too. The fridges are not big enough for 20-100 students food to be stored daily. It also relies on a teacher or if lucky enough, a technician to put the food in once it's cooled down.

The better equipped departments, with Heads of department and teachers who have well developed affordable recipes are a rare mix in my experience.

Sorry wasn't meant to be a rant, just a viewpoint from the opposite side of the fence.

Yes I can see that, it would be very different logistically.

I emailed the FT teacher to ask and she said she'd make some enquiries. I don't know what about but she was quite sympathetic. I asked DD to ask her friends but it seems it isn't the done thing iyswim and people didn't really get it, but I'll talk to her about ways she can phrase it, as she's a shy girl, even with her friends The FT teacher seems lovely!

I had to come back to this thread because i suspect dd3s Food Tech teacher could be a mnetter
This weeks ingredient list consists of
2 large potatoes.
1 large onion.
2 leeks.
salt and pepper.
A large spoonful of double cream if required.
They are cooking the period before break. and will then sit down together and eat what they have made.
It cost me about a pound for the leeks, I had everything else, and because they are eating straight after lesson, there is no keeping hot or cold,or bringing home on bus.
So, if you teach food tech at a mixed grammar school in East Kent,thank you have a and some

heronsfly that's great!

People who are complaining about the code, I don't understand why you don't just sub in cheaper ingredients?

Making a Thai chicken curry? Swap the chicken for an aubergine or a courgette.
Making a Moroccan dish with 12 spices which you don't have? Buy a pack of Moroccan spice mix instead. .
Making chilli? Swap the mince for a tin of beans and two grated carrots.

Perhaps they aren't allowed to sub ingredients? Another poster above said her daughter got detention for adding herbs.

I think some people have been a bit rude on this thread. Some families are living down to the penny. I wouldn't be able to afford £2.50 a week for ingredients at the moment so can see why OP could be struggling. I'd be fucked if we had to do some of the more expensive recipes that other posters have had to do.

Perhaps they aren't allowed to sub ingredients?

Then you claim your mum has turned veggie and you have to cook veggie food in food tech.

I can't see a school forcing a Muslim kid to make pork sausages or something like that!

I don't know, I got bollocked for refusing to cook mince when my whole family was vege!

F a child is on fsm the school have to provide ingredients! I'm a tech teacher and a child should not be held back at a key subject due to cost

Thats not true at all - you are passing your school policy off as a blanket 'law'.

A parent can request that pupil premium is used. Or indeed a HoY can intervene. But of course if the FSM kids aren't physically bringing anything in - that marks them as different to their peers who are bringing ingredients in.

The whole Food Tech thing annoys me. It pisses me off no end that I have to pay/send in anything. I don't have to for any other tech lessons and I'm damned sure quality wood is more expensive than a couple of eggs and some flour.

We had to pay for wood etc that we used too. Generally we were given a bit of free rein designing our project, but then had to pay for the materials (over and above the basic) to make it. For example, we did an electronics project and were given the basic components, but then we had the option to add lights, switches etc if we paid for the bits. Except when it came to GCSE, then you paid for everything. In fact, I did GCSE Resistant Materials and we had to pay to photocopy A3 paper with a particular design and our initials on it, to do the paperwork for our design project on.

In IT we had to pay for our own printing (think we got something like 200 pages a year free, enough to cover basic school work, but had to then pay for extras).

I can't remember if we had to pay for our own fabric in textiles though.

Did I just go to a really cheapskate school?

AIBU to think there should be a way of receiving financial support? Alternatively, in each class, every student pays in x amount and then people receiving (for example, FSM, tax credits, etc;) don't have to pay as much or anything.
No I'm bloody sick of people on FSM, tax credits etc getting a bloody discount or not paying anything in at all. We can't afford extra stuff at the moment. At all. We have no money after the bills and basics and we don't claim benefits so on what basis do we get free stuff? FFS.

I agree MrsLT.

It's the same with school trips.

This is why the pupil premium should be scrapped and replaced with a system that reaches all families that need help.

We paid for all cookery and all needlework materials.

DDs pay for cooking and some fabric, but there seems to be some scrap about.

Yes MrsLT. At the moment, there seem to be a lot of families who earn just a little too much money to qualify for any help, which means they're actually worse off than those with a slightly lower income. In our school, children on FSM also get a discount on school uniform.

And you can almost guarantee that, if you went to the head and pleaded hardship, you would be dismissed as if you were that badly off you would receive FSM.

Whereas when I was at school the teachers had sneaky ways of helping those less well off. For example, in year 10/11 we had the option of going swimming in PE time. We had to pay for ourselves. However, the teacher would collect up everyone's money and buy a multi trip card with it- where you get 10 swimming sessions but only pay for 9. This meant that 1 child in every 10 could get in free. I doubt that would be allowed now- schools aren't allowed to charge extra to cover those who can't/don't pay, even though in my example we only paid the same as we would have anyway, the school would probably be forced to give every student a 10% discount or something.

YANBU DD does food tech GCSE and it is ridiculous. They do 2-3 meals in one day at times and if they aren't graded that day they have to do it again!!! Costs me about 5-10 per recipe and it is every week. Not sure if I would putmy others of unless they were desperate. Don't fancy my twins doing it!

Thank you woowoo and crohnically for agreeing with my little rant this morning! I thought I might get flamed! We absolutely do not (and never will) be eligible for FSM, tax credits etc. I earn a wage which on paper looks good enough. We have a very small mortgage yet after bills, childcare, £60 PW food, petrol etc. are left with practically nothing. I know that some people who are eligable for FSM, tax credits, PP etc. have more disposable income than we have. Not all of course. This thread hot a raw nerve and p'ed me off well and truly this morning.

Totally agree with MrsT and Woowoo.
I emailed my ds tech teacher about the huge list of ingredients for the half term.
She emailed back telling me what he couldleave out if necessary.
Why couldn't she just have done that in the first place??
His banoffe pie was worth all the cash though!! [Frin]