Why isn't nutrition/cooking a core subject at school?

[estavino]

Just that really. I see so many kids having regular lunch/dinners that's barely contains any nutrition not out of laziness/budget but due to lack of education.

I can't think where I use any science knowledge gained from school in day to day life yet I had an hour a day once a week for years. Cooking on the other hand I had one term a year for three years. I think we had to make shortbread, a fruit salad and a flapjack. In the second year we had to make a tomato and cheese sauce. In the third I think we had to cook chicken breasts and something to do with beef. Yet I can still label parts of a cell, atoms and know some basics of the periodic table.

We literally use nutrition various times a day- why isn't it compulsory?

And parents that have the time and energy not only to cook something they know but to learn new skills and demonstrate them to their children, Pengggwn. Ds is pretty well alone among his friends to have parents who cook on a regular basis; the rest shove something ready-made in the micro-wave. It's understandable, they are not well off and typically have to work long hours to make both ends meet. But a fewe basic techniques would result in healthier food.

So you'd remove Music, Languages and Computing

I had forgotten these

But. Music doesn’t suit everyone. It should be optional (generally only the well off kids do music anyway, trying to avoid exclusions).

Languages. Meh. Being able to list your hobbies in Spanish, hardly sets you up for the world. Again, optional for those that want to take a language.

Computing. That’s probably where kids are better than adults, where technology is concerned

And, I did say it was my fantasy list.

There are 11 years to play with. From age 5 to 16, to get ready to take 8/9 exams, there’s 11 years. Surely we can squeeze in some common sense subjects and ease up on the overly academic or even ‘unnecessary’ subjects?

Don't your DC do budgeting etc at school?

DSs do a lesson called 'enrichment' and they have done things like credit cards and interest rates, mortgages and most recently how to book a holiday!

It should be taught in schools. Sadly loads of parents don't know or care about nutrition and their kids miss out.

Yes, because I said let’s ditch all current subjects, and spend 11 years baking cakes

You can't do everything in school. The kids who are taught to cook at home don't need it, and the ones that aren't won't get any practice or anything and won't absorb it.
How about we make sure they can all read and count properly for a start, because we're still failing plenty of kids on that front.

But ideally when you study a language, you also study it's culture so should cover history and foods as well.

I'm not British, but say the language we studied was English- we then would've had British history, British Geography and British culture separately.

Budgeting / financial education is already covered under the Citizenship requirements.

I don’t think it would make much difference tbh. How hard is it to google a recipe or throw together some pre-prepared veg, meat and rice? I think it’s more that people don’t know/care enough about nutrition. I learnt a lot in health and nutrition, not so much food tech.

I do think there should be more life skills type stuff taught though.

As a childminder who has looked after almost 80 children in the past 18 years from reception until yr10 (and I have a couple of teens of my own) I disagree that children are not taught what they need.

All the children know about healthy eating, nutrition, exercise and all of them have cooked at school too. Even the reception aged children know that sugar is a no-no and exercise is important. Secondary school children learn more in depth about diet and nutrition in biology. They also have lessons in politics, voting, bank accounts, interest rates etc - I think the school covers an amazing amount of stuff.

Even if you can't read a recipe there are thousands of pictorial/video recipes available now. Everyone can cook if they want to.

A while ago, on a thread similar to this, one MN poster just suggested that parents drop off their children at school as newborns, then pick them up at 18. Then parents can't be blamed for not teaching their children anything and any gaps in the children's capabilities can be blamed on the Education system. Simple.

I think one of the main differences from when I was at school is that we had a qualified music teacher, a sewing/crafts teacher and a woodwork teacher who each had their own rooms with all their specialist equipment.
We also did home economics. This was all at middle school.
However there was no ofsted and no literacy hour/ numeracy hour and subjects got equal attention.

I agree cooking should be a larger part of the curriculum. I'm in my late 20's in secondary school we made various cakes and then spent a term designing and making 'healthy' pizzas. Luckily my mum was a good cook and had me helping out in the kitchen from an early age and cooked a good variety of dishes (a mixture of home made and pre made). Others my age may not have had someone to teach them how too cook and how to portion a meal and make it go a bit further.

I thought Food Tech was compulsory now up to Year 9. The last school I taught at had to build kitchens for it and everything. That doesn't mean it's always taught well, I'm sure, but all this arguing about whether it should be on the NC is a bit moot when it already is.

I wish I could have learnt.

My family didn't teach me a thing and the occasional classes at school were projects like Make a V.E. Day spread using authentic ingredients?!

Pointless, useless. I'd love to have learnt 10 basic dinners etc.

I have learnt scraps from friends but I see the whole thing as horrible. I'm sure if it was introduced earlier I wouldn't see it as a chore

I do believe that we were taught the basics as well as kids of today. However they're not taught to cook tasty alternatives thus the cycling continuing of babies eating packets of crisps and toddlers surviving on cheesy pasta and fish fingers.

I volunteer as a youth leader and while it's the schools' responsibility to teach the three Rs I see it as my responsibility to teach basic life skills (some are taught at home but a lot aren't). A few weeks ago the kids wanted to do some baking. I took this as my chance to show how to bake more nutritional brownies- queue lots of 'eeeews', 'gross' 'what is THAT' and that wasn't just from the kids.. For the kids to get their badge they had to try a little bite. There was lots of asking for seconds and some even asked to do the same baking again. The adults I volunteer with flat out refused to begin as they thought it would go down like a lead balloon and how we're meant to be 'fun'. Both asked for the recipe of sweet potato brownies at the end.

My step sister's DS (3) doesn't like vegetables apparently so she's stopped serving them to him. He quite happily ate my green pancakes (spinach and kale) for breakfast but probably not anymore as she let out a huge 'EEEWWWW' when she picked him up at that day.

I honestly believe a lot of people wouldn't know what's healthy and what's not. Sure everyone knows the food groups, to not each too much sugar and fat and everything in moderation but that's not exactly knowing nutrition/healthy eating.

We could pick up a book/watch a video to learn anything but there's got to be something to inspire someone to want to learn. Why do kids have to practice spellings? Or have practicals using bunsen burners? It's all well and good kids knowing fish is good for us, but what's the point if they don't know how to cook it?

pengggwn meant to say that they don't just learn spellings they have to practice spellings. The teacher could just teach the theory of spelling, but they need to practice to be able to spell. --Sorry it's late, I probably should stop multi-tasking but i'm on a an extremely slow nightshift