AIBU To pull my son out of food tech?

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To pull my son out of food tech.
My son isn't a bad cook at home, but at school most of the dishes are costing between £5-8 to make and are inedible. We have also lost 3 containers because of kids just grabbing whichever one looks best rather than their own!
AIBU to refuse to send stuff in from now on? He is only in year 8 so we have at least another year of this shit.

Well 2 of my kids ( same school 12 years apart) had the buy tinned apples for crumble scenerio. Never ever had fruit prep lessons. Although DS was taught to cut up peppers etc at nursery aged 4@

I silently have the vapours when DH washes up and does the glasses at some random point in the process instead of first. 😬😁

Yup - glassware first. Always.

@sashh I'm a bit disappointed there's no 'magic' new Finnish steps that I wasn't previously aware of, just additional detail of the process and a different end point. Oh, and I leave things to air dry rather than towel drying them.

Raise your concerns but grin and bear it for another year. It will just result in DS getting detentions for not bringing ingredients. That’s how schools are nowadays. Ex secondary teacher of 25 service.

Food tech is always inedible. My dc's weren't interested in eating what they'd cooked after it had been hanging around all day. It was still a useful lesson though.

i wash out and keep my butter tubs for exactly this reason, if an old butter tub gets lost or broken im not worried, most of the things my son brings home is pretty good but at his school they now set a food tasks eg last week he had to make an italian pasta dish and they get to choose what they make (he made spaghetti and meatballs) or a few weeks ago they had a group task of bbq food and each child in his group had to bring in a different component so someone brought in the stuff to make burgers, my DS made stuffed potato skins someone else in his group made chillidogs etc which is much better than when my DD done it which was the same as many PPs (omelette, flapjack etc).
edited to add: his food tech lessons are always the last lesson of the day too so if he overruns by 15 mins it doesn’t matter too much as he wont be late till next lesson and the food isn’t hanging around all day either.

That’s ok, there’s a fair amount of criticism on this thread.

I wonder how many folk have tried to teach the rudiments of cooking to 20 kids, making things they’ll find interesting within an hours time limit. I’m appreciative of their teachers efforts because it’s made them more interested in cooking at home, and they’re very proud of every foil packed dish they bring home.

I'd speak to the school about the issues.

I've got cheap containers from Sainsburys (like takeaway ones, 5 for £1) and luckily our school make the cost very reasonable - they supply the more expensive ingredients, we just need flour, veg etc

LTB.

😂😂😂😂😂 tempting.

So are you suggesting that having bought your flour and sugar (about £1.80 if you buy granulated sugar instead of caster - it won't affect the result), made one crumble you are going to chuck the rest in the bin. If your the sort of household that can't find basic ingredients by just looking in your cupboard, it shows why simple cooking skills need to be taught. Do you buy everything ready made and prepared?

Nope but I don't have flour and sugar anyway as I simply don't use it. Nor do I actually make crumbles, cakes etc so if I had to buy all this stuff just for a school crumble it's expensive . Butter also costs a small fortune

I do however have a good supply of spices and herbs that go well with stuff I do cook

Well yeah, except as I said I didn’t know you could buy if for 60p. I didn’t know it was a product that existed in a ready made mix! And now I do.
I still wouldn’t buy it as I always have flour and butter in the house.

I reckon you're not actually buying the thing you're making at home for 60p. For starters, I doubt there's any butter in the 60p packet. Flour and sugar, yes, those are shelf-stable ingredients, and cheap. Palm / rapeseed oil has probably replaced the butter. So, a pack of oily, sugary flour, maybe with some extra starches, preservatives, perhaps emulsifiers thrown in.

In Finland we leave things to dry in the drying cupboard above the sink, that's a very Finnish step! (Though it isn't actually one of the steps in school as they have to dry and put away everything so they're all in the right place for the next class)

Food tech teaching really varies, depending on the school. I don’t think the lesson necessarily reflects her son’s cooking skills and if someone got there first and took his food how is that his fault. Some schools are huge and chaotic places. It’s a shame schools are not inspiring students, I learnt so many everyday recipes in school which I still use today.

I need to move house now. I've got a window behind my sink, but I definitely want a drying cupboard.

Likewise with the window behind the sink. But I want both - washing up is bearable if I can look out at the garden whilst doing it. If I had to stare at a wall whilst doing it, I think one of my kids would be offered a kitchenhand job with a good rate of pay.

I did consider that. It is nice to see outside too. We definitely need to recruit our children for the task. 😉😂

I make DD do the dishes half the week once DS is tall enough to reach the drying cupboard he'll do the other half.

School cookery/food tech seems so poor these days. When we were at school we did learn proper skills which ai still use, ljke making pastry and crumbles and things. Now they seem to just assemble things.

It really varies a lot. In our school they do learn to do pastry, pasta from scratch, different types of sauces etc. Year 7 do learn how to chop fruit, like apples for apple crumble and turnovers. No tinned fruit is used at all.

Another challenge in food tech classes is that the some students refuse to touch raw chicken breast or put their hands in mince. They are not vegetarians they just find it too eww!

Please may I ask what information you are basing that on?
Our school does make pastry and crumbles- it’s very skills focused.
We do have to be resourceful regarding time, equipment and safety, but I hope that we arm the pupils with good skills for their future, or for progression to the GCSE.

It probably depends what sort of school you go to. I'm not sure I'd give some of the children in my son's school sharp knives. 😬😂. The food tech lessons aren't brilliant, but probably cover a basic curriculum. It must be frustrating for the teacher as she's really passionate about her subject, but has most likely had her hopes dashed by the children. I'm informed that it gets better in yr 10 for GCSE Hospitality and Catering. 🤷‍♀️. DS wanted to do Computing but the GCSE selection boxes on offer said no. 🙄