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.

Different schools make different curriculum choices. My DD’s school does food once a fortnight for every term of KS3. Practicals and theory alternate. Practicals have a skill focus (e. g. Chopping skills) and/or fit into the theory topic. End of year exam like any other subject.

Yes, in my DDs school they have cookery and cooking for hospitality (which is learning with a trained chef) so 4 hours of cooking related classes each week. My DSs school they have two terms of cookery and one of fabric skills/sewing in S1/S2 the classes are always double periods so 80/90 minutes a week. I think they’ve both had really useful, practical learning in both settings.

I believe the skillset for cookery ramps up in yr 10 as the GCSE option.
I have a lovely cushion with removable cover made by DS, and he is currently making a hoodie.

Finland sounds incredible for this.

OMG no way - it’s definitely good that times moved on from the girls serving the boys nonsense. Mind you, some
marriages still follow this pattern evidenced by a lot of posts on here, regardless of how much the woman works. It’s wild.

One of the only useful things I learned at school. I still use my GCSE cookery notes at times.

My kids loathed cooking classes because it wasnt taught well. The lesson planning and provision was awful. Not one thing came home edible. The nadir was their last compulsory lesson when they could make what they wanted. DS wanted to make ravioli. He'd made it before. He made pasta dough the night before ready to roll out. The teacher insisted that they were pasties and shoved them in the oven! He was saying no miss, you have to boil them. She told him not to be silly, you dont boil pasta. A food teacher.

Oh that is nice that he gets to make proper things! My memories of tech lessons in the UK were 90% theory and a few lessons making something rubbish. But I was at a pretty terrible school.

DD has made so many cool things in her tech lessons, in primary school she made trousers tailored to her measurements, a sauna cushion (wooden slatted frame with cushion attached), a model ship, amongst other things, in upper school a chair, a clock shaped like Finland, a bedside table with cupboard and drawer, and a skateboard is next on her list - they can make anything they like and material is all provided (except the wheels for the skateboard, I need to source those)

That sounds like when I was making things in the dark ages, one week we did the theory / recipe / teacher demonstrated and then the next we cooked.

We had to have a basket with a cover to bring ingredients and to take home. I wouldn't even know where to buy one these days.

I like the idea of contributing at the start of the term, that's sensible.

At my school they had a system of if you couldn't afford the ingredients, a teacher would provide them and then the teacher took the food home. Not just DS teachers one of the history teachers seemed to buy something every week.

The teachers must have been trusting no one was going to spit in the food.

OP you can't withdraw him, sorry. A PP said something about making the same dish at home, I think that's a great idea.

I understand the constraints of school cookery lessons too. It’s not that I have necessarily superior ingredients but I do have more time, and time is often what makes a good dish even better. Trying to cook a decent chilli or bolognese in an hour is pretty impossible. Yes they learn the techniques and basic skills but they need to know that many things need time.

I don’t think it’s the schools job to teach my kids how to cook though, I’m glad they do some work with them and both kids have had valuable learning. Making an apple crumble from scratch rather than using tinned apples is a different process, letting a meat based sauce cook down simply isn’t possible in a standard lesson length, making pizza dough and giving it time to rest can’t be done in school. It’s not snobbery to build on the basic skills they gain in school.

Finland is incredible for all its tech lessons, practical subjects are considered very important and everyone has to take at least 2 of them for the last two years of under 16 school (when they get to choose some of their subjects)

I remember my DS bringing home an ingredient list for Thai green chicken curry that included mirin.
For fucks sake, they expected every child in the class to bring in a bottle of fucking mirin. Don’t know about you but it’s not a staple of my cooking.
idiots

Not every kid has the experiences yours do at home. If you have the skills, experience and time to extend the school lessons at home that is great. It is not snobby. However, the school is constrained by time and the skills of the kids. They may use tinned fruit for a crumble so they can work on the rubbing in process for the topping for example. The kids still learn to make something nice. Dismissing that is what is snobby. Tinned fruit may not be as good as fresh, but it is a start. They may work on chopping & peeling skills in a different lesson (my DD did fruit salad). You can make a perfectly edible curry or bolognese in 50 minutes. Yes it would be nicer if they had longer but at KS3 they don’t. It is first steps.

KS3 food is a practical option to give a grounding in very basic cooking & nutrition. It is also a starting point for kids who want to take it a GCSE. Kids start with very different skills and experiences of cooking at home. Maybe I have an unrefined palate but yesterday I ate the lasagna DD made in food (heated for 40 mins in oven as instructed at home) and it was lovely. They made white sauce, ragu & assembled it in class. Sat in fridge for the rest of the day b4 she collected at home time.

I do think schools should look at how it is financed and obscure ingredients like mirin are just silly. We have never been asked for stuff like that.

I’m not sure why you think I’m being critical of school cookery lessons?

Genuine apologies if you’re not. I thought you were bashing what they were doing in food lessons. Really sorry if I mixed you up with a different poster or got the wrong end of the stick.

@Jellycatspyjamas yes - sorry I didn’t read your posts carefully enough. That was my mistake. Apologies.

Be better learning to prepare the fruit and just using a crumble topping ( which is cheaper then buying ingredients to make it)

Learning to peel and chop an apple is not difficult, the "rubbing in method" is fundamental to baking, you can't make crumble, pastry, scones and shortbread without using it. Crumble mix is fairly forgiving if the ingredient ratios are a bit wrong and you don't quite achieve the texture of "fine breadcrumbs" so it's a good thing to start with.

It would be better to prepare the fruit if you are practicing knife skills, and better to prepare the topping if you are learning about the rubbing in method.
It all depends on the scheme of work and the sequencing.

Maybe. I’m sure my DD’s food teachers put thought into what they choose to do. As I said, they did fruit prep skills in a different lesson. My impression is they are trying their best in obviously constrained conditions. I’m no expert, but I think learning the rubbing in method is fine.

I didn’t even know you could buy ready made ‘crumble topping’. It’s hardly difficult to make!

Perhaps students aged 11 upwards, and/or their parents, could take the initiative and coordinate amongst themselves to buy and share costs of ingredients, rather than thinking that needing an ingredient you might not have at home requires everyone in the class to buy their own bottle / jar / pack.

Genuine question: does that expect too much of secondary aged students? Does it expect too much of their adults?

You are missing washing up in the right order.

So start with glasses, then cutlery, then plates.

Dry with a tea towel.

You leave the pots and pans until last. They are washed and dried using a well rung out dish cloth.

Then you clean the sink and washing up bowl.

The bowl goes on its side in the sink.

The dish cloth is placed over the tap hanging down to dry.

The tea towel is folded and hung.

Yes I went to a school run by nuns.

But if you have to buy flour sugar etc to make it then becomes expensive. Or just buy for 60p