To think that in Yr8, cookery teacher should be providing recipes and a guided /planned lesson?

[mummyflood]

Have 2DS, 1 yr 8 other yr10. Towards end of Yr9 for DS1, cookery teacher started telling them they could cook 'whatever they wanted' during the lessons This ended up with a couple of kids taking in pot noodles, tins of soup etc, and according to DS she didnt say much. Some even didnt take anything, and she just said 'never mind, help your friend'.

DS2 has just gone into Yr8, and already she is telling them to do what they want, with minimum guidance - i.e. last week, make any pasta dish and this week, cook anything with 2 vegetables in it.

AIBU to feel that, definitely in Yr8, she should be providing prepared recipes so that they are actually learning about specific ingredients, cooking methods, nutrition, etc. in a guided lesson, or is it now the norm to expect the parents to more or less do the planning/thinking in this way? I feel a bit that they are taking in jars, packets, etc, especially DS1. It seems to go against the grain of teaching healthy eating imo. I can understand more DS1's lessons to be slightly less guided, he has chosen Food Tech as a GCSE and therefore I would probably expect him to be learning to plan and prepare more for himself. Would be interested to know what others think??

Seems odd to me. I would have thought a keen and interested teacher would have wanted to make sure that certain methods etc got covered.

It may of course be that she expects them to research e.g. pasta recipes on the Internet, which should not be beyond the capabilities of a Yr 8 class, but if so, they should be told that this is part of the homework and that bringing in pot noodles is not acceptable.

Why would the parents be doing the planning, in any case? They are 12 years old; I would expect dd (11) to be able to find herself an online recipe and do her own planning. (though I wouldn't do the lesson that way if I were their teacher.)

I don't know what the bottom line is, but I am too. Seems to go against the grain of what is in the papers at the mo - completely agree with you. Let's hope a home Ec teacher (as was!) answers the thread.

my dd has brought home a a cooked dish ever second week -0 he weeks inbetween are for writing

sounds like lazy teaching - go and kick the school in he ass

I do agree with Custardo. If they are taking in ready-made food then they are surely not following the curriculum and teacher is a lazy incompetent cow.

surely she should be teaching them the basics like how to make a sauce, how to bake, how to roast, make a soup, salad, different potatoes etc etc..sounds v lazy!

I think that you need to have a word with the school - that is not lazy teaching - it's not teaching at all!

I don't htink I'd get very far if I walked into a classroom and said "learn something"!

Even at GCSE level they should be given some level of guidance - even if it's "cook a main course for a vegetarian" or "find and make a curry recipe" - something!

I'd definitely be having a word.

Blimey - report her the teacher to Jamie Oliver - no wonder our standards have gone down so much . My DW is an ex cookery teacher food technologist teacher and the main reason she got out was because the lessons became too targetted at the technology / design aspect and not real cooking skills. Was very at the teacher - would have words with head of that department / school head or letter to governors.

Well my ds was told to bring in the stuff for 'paprika chicken' the recipe was very heavy including 8 chicken breast pieces!!! we divided it down thinking that was what you had to do to work out what portions your family would need.

Ds1 set out to school with 4 chicken breasts and all the other ingredients with a plastic tupperware casserole dish thing to fetch it home in.

We'd attempted the recipe at home so ds1 knew what to do and so we knew we would actually eat the meal.

Ds1 came home with cold half cooked chicken!!!

what happened?? the teacher said he couldnt cook it bcos he didnt take a casserole dish AND a plastic tub !!!(on the sheet it said use plastic to take home!!)so hed prepped it all ready to do at home ......she then used his chicken to brown to show the class and told him it would be all right til he got home- the lesson was at 9am he didnt get home til 4.30!!! the chicken was in the tub with the raw other ingredients and had been all day - he wasnt allowed to leave it in the fridge!!.

Not very impressive is it?

With ds2 we work the ingredients down to single portions so he still does it just not so vast a quantity.

But still ds2 came home with what was supposed to be pasta salad ,,,,,,wheres the pasta? says i.....oh says ds2 we were supposed to take in cooked pasta so we all had to leave that out to do at home .....I despair!!

rantover