Gobsmacked about daughter's food tech lesson

[dottybooboo22]

I've just been informed by dd that she's cooking next week in her food tech class. I have to buy the ingredients. I don't mind that but then she said they have to practise at home so they'll be able to make it in class
She then got all stroppy when I pointed out that it would cost twice as much for the stuff and wasn't it the whole point of the lesson to teach them how to make it??? Am I missing something here?

[AChickenCalledKorma]

I would never eat something a child had made at school unless they were at GCSE or A Level standard and their food hygiene was second to none.

Why on earth not? I can only speak for my daughter's school, but everything is refrigerated till they come home and she's brought home some lovely dinners that she was very proud of. Food hygiene is taught alongside knife skills, food preparation etc and her standards of cleanliness are at least as good as mine. Nobody has died and it's nice to have an evening out of the kitchen.

[dottybooboo22]

I'm not saying it's solely the schools job to teach her how to cook, but she doesn't have to have practise runs before her maths, English, PE, classes etc. She's 14 and does some cooking at home, cakes mainly cos that's what she's into.
It just seems odd to me.

[VestalVirgin]

We live in times where most women don't unpaid housework full-time anymore, and therefore have no time (or skill) to teach their children how to cook, but schools haven't yet taken over the job.

I can see how this would lead to conflicts.

I don't think practising how to make meatballs is doable. You'd have to do it ten times in a row to get the knack of it, if they're like other dishes where you form balls out of food, and no one can eat the same thing that often in a row.

She could practise how to roast onions without burning them and stuff. That can be added to a lot of different foods.

[Ladybird11]

We are quite lucky that in my daughters school we send £15 in to school in September to cover ingredients and then at cookery practicals all the children have to take in is a box to bring their creation home in and tea towel/dishcloth for washing up. Saves a lot of waste and hassle.

[imwithspud]

Just don't do it. What can they do really? It's likely that she misheard anyway, or that the teacher was suggesting they could if they wanted to rather than insisting. Instead, encourage her to read through the recipe a few times so she has an idea of what comes after each step and can be better prepared in class.

Or if you really feel she has to 'practice' get her to make it for dinner one evening. Saves you a night of cooking. You don't have to teach her anything, I'm sure a secondary school aged child is more than capable of following a recipe.

[VladmirsPoutine]

Daisygarden Even at GCSE or A-level I'd have serious reservations! Unless one of them was at chef school of some sort then maybe, just maybe I'd consider it, but I'd never even consider eating some 'cookies' baked by toddlers or a bunch of gormless teens.

[pudcat]

When my granddaughter lived with me we had to practise the recipes at home. We made bread, pizza dough, victorian sponge etc. I quite enjoyed it and it all got eaten.

[ImperialBlether]

I was very unimpressed with my children's schools re Food Tech. My daughter had to draw a pizza (they never actually made one, so not sure what the point of that was) and my son's used to be "We can make whatever we want" so eg one lesson he'd be making brownies, someone else would be making a meat pie and someone else would be making bread. Absolute rubbish. They weren't taught to cook and I was told very loftily by the teacher that that wasn't the point of the lesson.

[Trifleorbust]

It's not a cooking lesson. Look up the syllabus and look at the assessment foci.

[Crikeyblimey]

We had cheese and onion pie for dinner tonight thanks to food tech. It was lovely. However, the lesson was entitled 'handling pastry' and required ready made pastry! So 'rolling out' then. Shame they didn't make the actual pastry but I guess as time is very limited and stuff...

I loved 'domestic science' as it was called in the olden days. We actually cooked loads of stuff from scratch.

DS's school are fairly good about ingredients and things like herbs, spices etc. they always say '10p per student towards the cost of...' To save parents having to buy something especially that they may not use at home. They are making pizzas in a few weeks and have asked for 50p for the dough ingredients, so everyone can share big bags of flour etc.

[Sugarlightly]

Food technology isn't about "learning how to cook", it's the science of food.

[Sugarlightly]

And we do have "practice runs" as such in the form of homework at school

[RB68]

If food tech is being covered by other teachers they may not do any practical work, but a good teacher will and a good teacher will also do the asking for a sum of money and wholesale buy the goods for class. But they do this in their own time and often top up the amount as money is forgotten or not paid. They really want the kids to do well and learn. My sister taught this for a while and did all sorts with the kids - they loved her as she liked the practical side and not so much the none practical but these gcse kids had had no practical lessons till she came along as they had had a lazy teacher. She used to practice the recipe with my DD who was 3 at the time and video it so they could see how easy it was!!!

[Waltermittythesequel]

Is food tech the same as home economics? (In Ireland).

It's a bit of a non-subject really isn't it? I wouldn't take it very seriously. If you don't want to send in ingredients just don't!

[BennyTheBall]

We nearly always have a practice run. The school encourages it and ds enjoys it.

The school provides most basic ingredients and we buy everything else. We pay £10 a year for basics provided by the school. All pretty reasonable to me.

[Clayhead]

I'm going to go against the grain - my kids always practice, they don't have to but they like to. Some of the recipes they've done have been lovely.

It's a 'non subject' my ds is doing a GCSE in...

[00100001]

My mum didn't even send us in with ingredients when we were at school. she couldn't afford the extra food. and it was always something our family wouldn't eat. so there was no reason for us to cook it, it would just be a waste of food that was affordable.

so we just didn't do the food tech practicals, we did other work,, or sometimes (with notice) the school would buy the ingredients and the teacher put it in the bin took it home

[Lunchboxlewiswillyoumarryme]

Two of mine have gone through this....year after yr of every week £15 ish added to my food bill.shit that comes home .or worse the teacher puts her spoon in another child's meat dish,then in my daughters...we were using a vegan mice..ffs..my son every time they cooked with meat got sent home,because the school said he was going to faint....open the fucking Windows then,he's vegan and the smell of 30 pans of meat cooking was enough to make him vomit.rediculous..they would insist I collect him,even though I said he's fine ,it's just the smell.and ofcourse we lostall the ingredients every fucking time,coz by the time he went back in the next day it had all gone...p

[Witchend]

Probably outing myself here (I did make quite a noise about it) but dd2 wasn't allowed to do most of the practical work for food tech. Every time she started the teacher elbowed her out of the way and did it for her because she didn't hold the food in the agreed way while cutting. She's missing her hand so couldn't. However she has been cooking full meals etc by herself since she was about 8yo and cutting as well as anyone else since 4yo. Unimpressed.

[Lunchboxlewiswillyoumarryme]

Oh yeah then there was the teacher who liked to taste everything .. Oh a bit of this a bit of that.in to her mouth and in to the pan,then on to the next child never using a clean spoon..perhaps we are just fussy? We never ate what came home

[dottybooboo22]

Maybe that's my problem Crikey, I can remember my domestic science lessons where we were actually taught how to make stuff from scratch!

[Lorelei76]

I have to ask...one poster mentions DC making a fruit salad. Wondering what age group that is?

I never ate what we cooked but we didn't get to store it in a fridge! Yuk.

[Italiangreyhound]

If it's about the science why do they need to actually make anything at all?

I must admit I wouldn't mind doing a practice run with meatballs, could be fun. But if I could not cook it, and dd was just going to follow a recipe, why not do it in class?

I hate cooking, it wasn't taught well when I was at school, my parents never showed me and now I have no love for cooking at all! And now I am hearing it is not taught at school at all, how very sad. What is the point of learning about the science of food if you are not going to be able to make any?

[Italiangreyhound]

We were taught to make tomato soup from scratch (in home economics or domestic science, not sure even what it was called in the late 70s!). The soup was horrible. Heinz was better!

[TickleMcTickleFace]

Let her practice - I remember when I'd chosen to make meatballs for food tech. Thank god I practiced as I thought you cooked the mince before adding the egg and breadcrumbs etc. then shaped them. It was god awful. My dad still ate it and asked for seconds though...