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.

Thinking of it I don't remember dd2 doing ith ( different school to dd1 and DS)

It's a life lesson, and if he gets it, I expect it's much less likely he'll end up obese, maybe do more cooking with him at home.

Same situation here Ds school do food tech but Dd1 goes to a different school who don’t. She is the better cook though 😅

Apparently he cooks ok at home L

Or chinese takeaway plastic containers. Write on the top wth a Sharpie

You do realise that to some people £5 is a lot of money these days. Some parents are struggling to even afford food for home, let alone food for lessons to be wasted because it is inedible.

It is a big deal if you can’t afford it and it’s inedible. And it doesn’t say much for the teacher if the stuff he’s bringing home is consistently uneatable. What’s the point ?

The container I have here has Oliver written on the bottom of it. DS said it was the last one left so he assumed it was his. Naming make no bloody difference.

My mum used to refuse to buy me the ingredients for things we were supposed to make in school. As a former chef, she was really scathing about the choice of dishes, saying they should teach us simple cooking skills, rather than making stupid things nobody would eat at home, that were costly to buy (one week the request was pre-made pastry, a tin of stewed fruit etc... for a fruit pie, and that really made her lose her shit, as she said no actual skill was being taught and at the very least, they could teach us to make pastry which is really easy). Now I'm an adult, I can totally see her point, but I'm still resentful, because she never took it up with the school, or bothered to speak to any teachers, I just had to make embarrassed excuses to the teacher and sit the lesson out, raging woth my mum for putting me in that position. So if there's an alternative he can do then great, or have a word with the head of year, but if yiure not prepared to do that, you should just suck it up (and label your tupperware), or your son will be the odd one out, which no kid wants to be at that age.

Same here, I didn't grow up here and didn't know this was a thing! Very enlightening! Sounds like a great idea in theory though!

We had food tech when I was younger it was edible food cooked fast ds did food tech it was inedible shite cooked poorly in many cases not cooked at all many many ingredients they have no hope of cooking they need to reel in the expectations or extend the lesson times

How often are they having food tech? One of my DC is in Y8 and he hasn’t had it once! Older DC had half a term an academic year between Y7 and Y9.

Agree, it costs a fortune but don’t think you will be able to pull them out of the lesson.

DS needs to be more proactive about getting to the fridge first!

Then he can choose, if not the best, at least his own - and in your container too!

Sounds as though that will solve some of the issues.

Surely something like a chilli you can just cook a bit longer at home if the meat is still chewy?

having the kids bring ingredients for food tech is ridicluous. Fine, I'll stump for the chocolate chips but when they start asking for a tablespoon of oil......
I'd rather pay £2 or whatever to contribute to the cost. And we also lost many containers.

I mean Tbf my kid does cookery every 2 weeks , this week he needed essentials like onion and garlic plus a chicken breast, 2 spoons of Thai green curry paste , 15ml soy sauce and coriander . As I had to buy a jar of paste and a bottle of soy sauce it does add up then I have to measure out the amounts he needs. Your kids school sounds definitely better as it’s so daft that every parent is doing this

Put his name on the container.

OP assuming you are in England (not sure if the regulations are the same in W, S or NI) if you and your DS are okay with him not bringing the food home, the school legally have to provide the ingredients. You cannot be charged for the materials for him to complete work on the curriculum unless you state you want to bring the item he makes home and they are not allowed to treat him differently because he hasn't provided ingredients (i.e. have everyone else actually cooking and him not).

The regulations are here:
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5af99c8ae5274a25e78bbe30/Charging_for_school_activities.pdf
While the law applies to local authority schools, as the document states, Academies, are required by their funding agreements to adhere to the regulations.

That's not something that's always within a kid's power in school.

Buying pregrated cheese is the height of lazyness, what happened to the rest of the block of ungrated block and the rest of the fresh herbs, did you just chuck them in the bin, because you couldn't be bothered and would rather order crap from Uber Eats.

It might not be - though it is hard to understand why every other child could get there sooner, But you are right, there may be an issue if he has to be at a music lesson or similar, but my point was really the OP needs to start with DS and find out why he is last to collect his meal or why he ends up with someone else's.

I feel for you, it’s expensive, I think it would be cheaper if the school got big value packs of flour, mince & golden syrup etc, I often end up buying something, Parmesan cheese for example and my daughter only used a bit of it, a lot of food goes to waste. A big better value chunk for the class (or big tub of golden syrup) for example would be easier, cheaper and not such a waste of food imo and parents can contribute, it would be cheaper all round, less food waste and more efficient

Use ice cream tubs and margarine tubs so it doesn't matter if it goes missing. It's all good skills even if he doesn't eat it.plus one of the more fun lessons. I'm sure he wouldn't thank you to be pulled out to sit in the library and do extra Maths.

I was so relieved when mine gave up food tech.

We had to buy and send in ingredients which ended up very expensive - although we soon got more adept at substituting the herbs and spices in the cupboard for the ones requested, which made it a bit more affordable.

There wasn’t enough time in the lesson to cook properly - cue a Bolognese sauce where the onion tasted almost raw because it hadn’t been softened for long enough.

It was an absolute waste of money.

But Dc cook competently enough at home where they have sufficient time, they have no problem following a recipe (though none of the school recipes have ever been reattempted).

I didn’t even have cooking lessons at school, but managed to cook perfectly well once I needed to do it for myself, just by following recipes in cookery books - of things that I actually wanted to eat!

It’s ridiculous to suggest that school lessons are somehow essential for learning to cook. I don’t think my Dc learnt anything particularly useful.

Stop sending him in with ingredients easy. Also see other posts about the rise of entitlement, you are not entitled to withdraw becasue it doesn’t suit what does that teach your children