Ks3 Food and nutrition

[piefacedClique]

I’ve been asked to join our schools food and nutrition department on a part time basis and have been tasked with rejigging the ks3 schemes of work.

The recipes used are all based around kitchen skills so rubbing in, rising, chopping etc. There is a strong health focus in the department.

Does anyone have any suggestions for recipes they use? or as parents what would you like to see your children cooking in school?

We have one hour lessons and class sizes of 15 pupils max. The catchment is in a quite deprived area so we need to keep ingredients costs low or make recipes where they share ingredients across a group.

Any suggestions would be amazing x

Mine macaroni cheese, bread (then pizza the next week) a crumble chilli, and a curry with no spices whatsoever.

We live in a deprived area and the school is always mindful of that. They don’t have to take in little bitty things like yeast. They only make two portions which I assume is because they haven’t got the equipment for more whereas my niece can change the recipe for her family size.

I would like it if they had said ‘now you have made macaroni cheese, you could make cauliflower cheese at home’ etc as although it may be obvious to people who cook regularly, it may not be to people who don’t.

In the school holidays the teacher has run an instagram page where you can send her photos of things you’ve made and she posts them on the departments Instagram which has been nice. You could do that for things they’ve made both at school and at home.

Completely agree with opening up their ideas -if you can make mac & cheese why not cauliflower cheese, how would you make it into a meal, how could you make it tastier (stronger/milder cheese, mustard, stock cube), use frozen veg to make it cheaper, how could you make it vegan, can you freeze it and reheat it, how? Make them think, give them ideas about where to look for help. Talk about salt, lemon, garlic. About how things like noodles, dumplings and pancakes reoccur throughout the world - ask what their experiences are.

How do you use what you have, how do make a meal if you have no way of cooking. Show them the cost of a homemade vs shop ought pizza as well as how to make it.

Talk to them about the huge profits and marketing involved in food and encourage them to make choices based on that. Influencers on insta, clean eating, using critical thinking to understand motivation.

Very exciting, you could spark big things!

Thanks both some great ideas xxx

DS1 (Y8) has had a theme of sauces running in this term's food tech, so we have made white/roux sauce, arrabiata, putanesca and a Singapore noodles sauce. Meal planning and evaluation seem to feature quite a lot.

When they're in school, the parents are offered the chance to make a one-off payment per year (which is modest) for ingredients, which saves them lugging in stuff every week. I imagine there is something in place for disadvantaged pupils.

Practical skills, adaptation of recipes, costing and scaling up are all welcome. As is cleaning up!

Anything but undercooked baking.
(Why, with one hour lessons, DD's school persisted in baking, I don't know. We had to send in the ingredients ready-weighed, so that they could just mix them and get them in the oven, and they still came home undercooked.)

What are your thoughts on things like Mac and cheese or lasagne Etc coming home unbaked so you can then have them hot at home? Or making pizza bases (the skill being the dough making) and then getting pupils to top them at home and email a pic/evaluation for homework?

Don’t ask them to bring in the ingredients. DD had to do this and ther wasn’t enough space in the fridge, we had to supply cool bags which didn’t fit in the lockers, measuring 50ml of milk or 3 tablespoons of tomato purée is a nightmare.

Get the schoo, to buy it in bulk and let each parent pay a share per year or term.

Make them eat it and not bring it home please. Maybe get them to cook in small groups of 4 and have enough for each child to eat instead of cooking individual portions.

Pasta is an easy and fast meal, can be done for vegans or vegetarians to also save money on meat, teach them basic sauces and they can replicate it at home.

Same with curries.

@piefacedClique

What are your thoughts on things like Mac and cheese or lasagne Etc coming home unbaked so you can then have them hot at home? Or making pizza bases (the skill being the dough making) and then getting pupils to top them at home and email a pic/evaluation for homework?

That only works if the lessons are at the end of a school day and the children go straight at home with access to a fridge. Otherwise you have a danger of food poisoning.

DD had her lessons before lunch so they could eat their creations as their lunch food.

DD made burgers which were brought home for cooking. She had orchestra after school, so had to negotiate to be able to collect them from the fridge when orchestra finished. There were no instructions on cooking or storage (it might be obvious to most, but I'm the only person who eats beef in this house, so I had to google, and I couldn't eat all four that night). It seemed rather ironic as it was part of a unit on food safety.

Anyway, anecdotes aside, you need to think through the practicalities of them getting from school fridge to home fridge, especially for those not going straight home, and you should provide clear instructions. In some areas you might need to consider those who might have limited facilities at home, eg only a microwave oven.

I do like Malificent's idea of teaching them to make something at school and encouraging them to have a go at the same or something similar at home for the family. Perhaps they can get their family to give it a "star rating" as well as sending in a photo.

I hate food tech... the measuring, the shopping for stuff getting left with ingredients you are not going to use again, cleaning the bag out when it has all leaked, having to buy lots of little containers to put it all in. and a larger leakproof container to carry it home. It is bloody expensive faff. cooking at home with the children in a small kitchen is a faff. Some of the kitchens close to school only fit one person in at a time. suggesting cooking at home just brings an extra stress to parents and to children whose homes are not exactly large/stable/well enough off.

so: simple things easy to source in your local area. (maybe cornershop?) and cheap.

making and eating in school would be good. (less waste)

curries, (school provide spice at small charge) can be quite cheap with onion carrots and a tin of chopped tomatoes.

flat breads. flour oil water and experiment with different additions. (onion, garlic, herbs, spice)

teach children to grow their own herbs on the windowsill. you can use these in food tech.

macaroni and cauliflower cheese. then how to adapt this to change the flavour.

stir frys.

possibly mince pies at Christmas. Jam tarts in the summer block.

what are you going to do about families that may need to cook with food bank ingredients?

I know this isnt quite answering your question but as a parent of a child with a severe allergy to milk who is just coming out of ks3, I would urge you to think of dishes that could be easily substituted with free from ingredients- for me that would obviously be dairy products but for other children could be eggs, wheat/gluten etc.

If you are doing taster sessions, are there dishes that could be eaten by everyone?

No doubt your school will have its own set of policies to work within covering health and / or inclusion that could help you

Definitely get school to buy ingredients, with parents paying, and kids to eat what they've made at school.

Teach about substitutions, vegetarian, vegan, and free-from alternatives. Class make-up might determine what you try to cook. Liaise with RE department over cooking for different religious groups?

Definately make it easily adaptable for vegetarians, vegans & anyone with allergies.

Making a lasagne to bring home & cook would be very awkward for kids who have after school clubs or walk etc.

Sauces are good to teach. Anyone can boil pasta/rice but being able to make a nice sauce makes all the difference.