Food Technology

[Catteach]

I'm a catering teacher at a secondary school, and at the
moment I ask students to pay £10 per half academic year for store cupboard ingredients, and then bring in extra ingredients each week depending on what they cook. How does this compare to anyone else's experiences of providing for food technology?

I am considering requesting a higher amount of money and providing all of the ingredients so everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed, even if they forget to take their ingredients in. However, this means they don't learn how to shop and select ingredients for themselves, and I have found that students are more wasteful with ingredients that they haven't brought in themselves.

My sons' school provides ingredients - they don't have to pay anything and they don't have to take anything in. Reasoning is that students doing the other DT subjects get the materials provided and don't have to take anything in or pay so it's not fair on the food tech students to treat them differently. Also saves a whole load of grief as there will always be people who forget ingredients or bring in the wrong ones.

DT department does ask parents for a voluntary contribution regardless of subject being studied - I can't remember if it's £5 or £10 a year.

Bizarre thing is, DS2 did Food Tech GCSE and one of their topics was 'luxury deserts'. They seemed to be for ever making cheesecakes so must have cost a fortune in cream cheese, cream etc. I was glad I didn't have to provide ingredients - especially as we never got to eat the finished products!

Boys grammar school by the way.

We are asked to give a voluntary contributation towards the Design and Technology Department's expenses in the sum of £6.00 per year, which obviously gets shared between all subjects.

Regarding cookery, my daughter has to take all ingredients in herself but the school will provide something like spices most wouldn't normally stock at home.

My dd's school doesn't ask for money. They have to bring in certain ingredients and others are provided by the school.

My DC's school don't ask for money either but they have to take all the ingredients they need for whatever they are making.

We paid £30 for the year which included all ingredients. We got to try some of the dishes too (unless dd ate it for lunch!).

My DCs have to bring in their own ingredients.

I plan all our meals as a family and so we throw away / waste very little food.

The ingredients lists from school often require foods that we wouldn't usually buy, and specify quite small amounts (smaller than the smallest packet size) so the rest of it often gets thrown away or left in the back of the cupboard (unless I can persuade the DC to make the same dish again at home).

Y7 Food Tech is timetabled the day before our weekly shop arrives, so fresh/perishable ingredients are delivered to us six days before the DC takes them into school.

However, this means they don't learn how to shop and select ingredients for themselves

Do you really think most children do this y7-9?
I just bought the stuff needed when I went shopping.

I would have liked the staples being provided by the school and the fresh veg/meat by us. Like TBOG I hate ending up with random left over packets that we will never use.

We had to pay £10 a term for the store-cupboard ingredients and provide the rest of the stuff ourselves.

I agree with Teen the kids don't do the shopping themselves, that is done by the mums. I made my DD weigh it all out herself the night before the lesson, but some of her friends' mums did this too!

My dd1 did a fair amount of the shopping herself because she would forget to tell me what she needed and then had to buy it on the way to school

I paid something in the single figures per year for each tech. And I think dd1 took pretty much everything she needed for food tech because I remember wondering what the money was spent on. I wouldn't have been particularly pleased to be asked for £20 a year, let alone higher - although I suppose if you guarantee they don't have to provide anything else throughout the year that might be ok.

We are invited to pay a small sum (£6?) a year that is shared by all the DnT subjects. School provides spices, salt, pepper, cooking oil and the like and everything else is sent from home. Providing the store cupboard ingredients isn't the problem, it's when I'm running around for red apples or cherry tomatoes that I wish he'd done another subject.

We have to bring it all in ourselves. My DS moan and whinge about weighing it out so do this. Not only have I had to buy the ingredients, I have to buy little tubs to send it all in separately. However I do get the finished dish brought home along with leftover ingredients (things I don't weigh out if any) I would rather pay an amount per half term to cover all this, not have to buy the little tubs and get my DS to weigh out. However I know from being more involved at Primary School there are lots of parents who don't pay up for trips/materials etc so I expect this is the reason the school doesn't do this. Primary School have always told me it is not the parents you expect not to pay that don't pay but rather the middle class well off ones who think they can get away with it.

DD has to bring in all ingredients which is a pain especially when they need things like olive oil, soy sauce etc.. Dd never shops, all ends up on my shopping list.

Pleased DD will drop the subject next year as I find the shopping list rather expensive and her wonderful creation usually goes straight in to the bin as it tends to be rather awful despite getting good marks... I wonder how markings on food tech are determined. I hate wasting food. I wish DC's could do their cooking late morning do they can eat their dishes at lunchtime.

My DD1 is in year 7 and food tech is on a carousel. We didn't have to make a financial contribution but DD did have go take in most of the ingredients herself. From memory, think school provided ingredients that needed refrigeration such as milk, and store cupboard ingredients such as oil.

I weighed out all of the other things - but will get DD to do this next time so thanks! She loves food tech and I think she will want to do GCSE.