AIBU To pull my son out of food tech?

[Summerishere123]

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.

When he is not doing food tech, why do you expect school are gonna put him?

I was talking about when they are at school. As you know.

When I was in secondary school (showing my age there!) I went in a German exchange trip. We had to attend school with our exchange partners.
I went to a cookery lesson. It was the entire morning. The school provided the ingredients and everyone in the class contributed to making a whole 3 course meal for the class. We then served it and sat and ate it in the classroom all together. It’s a great way of doing it.
When I was at school and we had cookery we had to take all the ingredients from home (all the girls carried a cookery basket - remember those?) and whatever we made we had to carry around all day - there were no fridges to leave it in - absolutely minging. I’m surprised I’m still alive eating all that bacteria laden shite 🤢

Your post wasn’t clear that you were restricting your comments to the school environment.

Food tech and its predecessors at school has been largely pointless for years and doesn’t seem like much has changed.

The whole thread was about cookery in school.

You said “how can anyone learn to cook without a teacher”

There are plenty of ways. Even in school.

It's probably ok for kids that have never set foot in a kitchen.
With everything pre weighed it's hard to get things wrong.
With limited time they don't learn how to test or judge if anything is properly cooked.
At my son's school they learnt how to chop an onion. (Prue Leith method) but I'd already taught him that, he's been baking with me since small enough to stand on a kitchen stool to reach the worktops.
The capable children help the hopeless ones.
DS washes his hands AND washes up properly.
The only horrible thing that came home was Mac n Cheese. But that's the Devil's food anyway. 🤢😂
The chicken and leek pie was particularly delicious. 👌

Generally speaking I expect pupils to have a teacher . Regardless of topic.

there’s more to food tech than the “food” he brings home, it’s one of the best subjects for practical use so I hope you won’t be allowed to remove him. so what if he can cook at home? The cost and the container issues are all part of it. there’s a child in my daughter’s form who’s parents won’t pay for the food tech ingredients and I have no respect for them for the reasons above. I had to cook for the family often at home but it’s the knowledge for compulsory “Home Ec” that lives rent free in my head and helps me every day

Most modern lunch boxes from Sistema and so on have little pots for dressing/tomatoes/whatever, so if a small amount of oil is required I put it in one of those.

My classroom is host to a year 9 tutor group (with a different teacher). I reckon some of them have destroyed £5 of equipment by 9am (whiteboard pens, biros, zip lock bags, erasers...) I wouldn't be quibbling over a fiver with at least a fighting chance of my child getting to use the ingredients!

My mother refused point blank to pay for ingredients to dishes we would not eat at home (about 80% of them, my Mum was a chop and chips type of cook) My cookery teacher said I could use her ingredients and she took the results home. £5-£8 per week is too much to waste- gdet your son to approach the teacher, they may be just as understanding as mine was.

Don't hold back - tell us what you really think!

But I agree and this just highlights how bloody difficult it must be to run a school. I've seen it said hundreds of times that kids should be taught cooking skills in school, and I agree. So schools do that, but then you get a load of whinging about how they're not bringing home cordon bleu dishes or that it costs a fiver.

If the cost is a problem or the occasional plastic container is going AWOL then raise it with the school, but to expect them to draw up an individually tailored timetable to fit around your particular preferences makes you an unreasonable pain in the arse.

Some comments here about specific dishes. (Fruit pie with ready pastry).
Food lessons don’t just cover skills. Each dish will be linked to a topic- for example- seasonality, provenance, high risk foods. The dish will often be there to support the topic/ objectives as
much as the skills.
Also- an hour with 20 plus kids is really tough!
Some need assistance in tying an apron. Some have never held a knife properly. Some don’t know how to wash up.
There’s a lot to cover.
What takes adults a few minutes, can take a group much longer.

This is a problem as old as time. My 62 yo DSis was often sent in with the ingredients for cheese scones, as my DM wouldn't tolerate the crap suggested by school.
My DSis is a fab baker, so her skills didn't suffer.
I remember DM being sent into a spin when I announced we were making meatballs and needed a tin of tomato soup for the sauce 🤣
Edited to say, I think you just need to suck it up OP. They only cook for a few weeks a year.

Whatever schools do, it's always the wrong thing for some parents.

Similar to Finland then, though they don't cook a full dinner every lesson as some weeks are dedicated to certain themes like cakes for mother's day or proper deep fried doughnuts for may day. They also learn to wash dishes properly and get tested on it - I've met grown men who still follow the 13 step dishwashing method they learnt in 7th grade! And end of every term they have to deep clean the classroom including the ovens so they learn how to properly clean a kitchen (they even wash the windows). They make some really nice looking stuff (the teacher has an instagram account for the food that's made) and in the final year do a masterchef-like competition and make meals that wouldn't look out of place in a really fancy expensive restaurant.

In my mum's day it was a 3 course meal plus bread made from scratch, but in those days it was just the girls cooking, then the boys would come in from their woodwork lesson, sit down at the nicely laid table and the girls would serve them... glad times have moved on from that!

Well, I hope that happens for the children taking a GCSE ( Hospitality and Catering at our school ) , but DS yr 9 has had none of the added information that you've described. Not during the last three years. They do cooking on a termly rotation with Design tech and Textiles.

Some kids enjoy academic subjects, some sports, some visual arts, some performing arts. The point of KS3 is to provide a broad and balanced curriculum . Some young people enjoy practical subjects including food. Others do limited/no cooking and it introduces them to basic skills.
I understand that some do find the cost of ingredients difficult & that needs to be addressed, however it is a valid part of the curriculum. My DD is not keen, but that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t do it. You can’t expect a personalised curriculum, but if you are struggling with the cost contact them. This is the third year we have been eating her stuff. It is edible and we have suffered no ill effects. Like any lesson some kids mess around others attempt to make it properly.

My DD is in specialist provision, she has two cookery lessons a week, one with a home ec teacher who does basic skills and one with a commercial chef working in a commercial kitchen. There’s a marked difference in what she brings home from each class - the chef taught class has made some really excellent food. My DS is in mainstream - he’ll make something at school and then ask me to show him how to do it “properly” ie without the constraints of time and ingredient choice he has in school. Both love cooking and it’s one of their favourite classes. No cost here though as schools can’t charge for main curriculum choices in Scotland.

& DD alternates between a theory and a practical. The practical fits with the topic. This isn’t noted on the ingredient list but she tells me. They have a food exam like any other subject.

@Natsku I am curious about this 13 step dishwashing method. What are the steps? I'm struggling to think of more than 10:

1. mechanically clear the plate of food (e.g. scrape anything on it into food waste)
2. rinse
3. water in sink
4. detergent in water in sink
5. clean dishes with soapy water
6. rinse dishes with clean water
7. set to dry
8. empty sink(s)
9. wipe / clean sink(s)
10. return clean dishes to their correct place in the kitchen

Both my kids have had learning around their practical cookery classes. My DDs class had a “food around the world” topic where they researched different food traditions and chose dishes from their chosen country which formed the dishes they made in their practical classes. My DS has had to research different ways of making the same dish, maillard reaction when cooking meat etc. They learned about preserving food, canning etc (using tinned fruit for fruit crumble).

The we do it so much better at home with superior ingredients are typical mumsnet. Sometimes I might a dish differently & the Y7 stuff was very simple. But I understand the time and skill constraints.

That sounds much more valuable. Is food tech a standalone lesson for a whole year there? The children here don't have time to do anything other than practical lessons.

Can't remember them now, if this thread is still going when I get back from holiday and can check her folder, I'll let you know
I do remember they also dictated the order of dishes to wash (things that touch your mouth get washed first)
There was also a multi step method for using the dishwasher.