GCSE Food Prep & Nutrition - 2019 spec hard?

[ComplexNeeds]

DD Yr9 choosing GCSEs and considering Food Prep & Nutrition as her ‘creative’. I’ve looked at the AQA spec (although not sure if that’s the board that school uses) and it does seem quite science based, which is great in many ways but DD isn’t very academic. What have other DCs thought of the new spec (post 2019, is very different to previous spec). School don’t offer BTECs and she’s already choosing maths, English x2, triple science, mfl, history, so food would be her ninth. Thanks in advance.

If she's doing triple science then she must be academic.

My ds did that qualification and really enjoyed the practical side of things.

Those subjects she's chosen are very academic, triple science, language and history.
If she is doing triple science I am sure she would be well able for the science content of the spec.
My DC school does the Eduqas spec for Food and nutrition, and I would be quite interested to know anyone's thoughts on that.

My son did this spec. He is very academic, so I initially had doubts for the opposite reason to you - I thought it might be a soft option for him - but it wasn't. The theory was interesting and useful, with lots of connections to the biology syllabus, so gave him no issues. The challenging part was the practical bit. His assessment involved planning and creating three complex dishes within a time limit, including clearing up. By complex, I mean that for the highest grades they need to be doing things like fileting fish, decorative piping, and making everything from scratch. They also need to write a project on the dishes they create, justifying their selection, amalysing their nutritional value, and cost. Ot was incredibly useful for learning skills that will give him lifelong benefit. Definitely not a soft option, and well worth their time.

Yes, I said MFL - modern foreign language. Has your DC done food?

My DS chose this GCSE. I have to admit I was a bit sneery about it but goodness me it was very rigorous. The theory was very science based - lots of biology but also links to chemistry. The practical element as PP as said gave him skills for life. In 3 hours he made homemade bread, homemade fresh pasta and homemade puff pastry and cleared up afterwards. The project part of the practical required research and evaluation. The bit that makes it easier is that there is only the one final written exam in June.

DS did this in yr9 (school compresses it into 1 year). He enjoyed it. I wouldn't say very academic but he did come home with lots of food & nutrition facts I hadn't heard before. Think he got a high 6, almost 7 in end (?). A lot of things went wrong with his practical but some parts went well, too.

This is my fussy eater kid who only ate about 12 different things when he was 4yo & still wouldn't try many things. But he likes to cook & bake . Catering GCSE was good for making him more adventurous with food, too.

@luvit good to hear that it complimented biology. Less good that they require fish filleting or decorative piping. The spec does look good though.
@PeekAtYou did your DS find the theory ok? Was it hard to get a decent grade? @EarthlyNightshade She’s not academic. Struggles with maths & sciences. She’ll have to work extremely hard to get good grades but she should pass them. She wanted to do double science but cant find a subject she’d enjoy to replace the third. She’s not especially creative, dislikes Geography & RS, zero musical talent and comp sci too mathsy. Shame they don’t offer dance. So for her ninth there's Food, which appeals. But she’s worried it’ll be like doing a fourth science.

My son was aiming for 9's in all of his subjects, including food and nutrition, so it was the higher grade that necessitated the fileting, piping, etc. If aiming for a lower grade the skills can be less complex. But it does need them to be well organised - the practical exam reminded me of an episode of masterchef, except they have to do the washing up in the time too! Be prepared to help her practice at home - we ate a lot of ravioli (made from scratch, including the pasta), fish pie and tarte tatin in the weeks beforehand!

Thanks @chocolatenutcase one written exam is good! I’m wondering if it’ll help with understanding sciences better?
@lljkk its not called Catering, I don’t think they’d do this spec in one year in yr9. It’s GCSE Food Prep & Nutrition - the new spec since 2019 (it used to be GCSE ‘food tech’) looks pretty rigorous.

Rather than a fourth science, think of it as a practical extension of her other sciences - for instance comparing different raising agents and experimenting to see which is most effective and why. It's fun!

@luvit she's not aiming for any 9’s - she’s more 5/6’s… maybe… on a good day. It’d be nice if this was a decent grade though. She has adhd so the organisation required for master chef type practical could be interesting! But yes she can practice lots at home. Thank you for sharing your DS’s experience. I’m guessing with an all 9 son he won’t have faced any issues with the theory, which is likely with my DD.

Yes! That’s exactly what I’m hoping. Maybe not an extension but a practical re-enforcement? I think I’d enjoy it.

This doc shows the sort of skills needed for lower, medium or higher grades, so your dd might want to be aiming for dishes and skills in the middle column: filestore.aqa.org.uk/resources/food/AQA-8585-NG-SL.PDF

My Y11 didn't take it but her friends did. We have ruled it out with our autistic Y9, the practical element is fierce with doing 3 big dishes simultaneously in a short timeslot. His exec function just isn't at that level, I think.

Re the theory, the whole year group were reassured that it's manageable in any Tech. Avoiding a Tech subject because of the theory side seems a bit topsy turvy. By definition they will surely have less "bookwork" than purely academic subjects.

There is real value in having a more practical or creative subject to break up your week. They also tend to come with a low homework load - though Food Tech might not feel that way if you are forever supplying ingredients. But from talking to current Y11s, very anecdotally, Food Tech seems the hardest to me if you have issues with executive function.

My D's did this and loved the practical element of the complex dishes. He made a raspberry mouse cheesecake using gelatin, chicken, bacon and peas in a blue cheese creme fresh sauce with tagliatelle and bruchetta with tomato sauce made from scratch and roasted peppers with mozzarella. They look for how many skills you perform so for raspberry mouse cheesecake: blooming gelatin, sifting raspberries, whisking then folding in cream, crushing biscuits etc. The more skills you can get in the higher potential mark. The real skill is in getting everything done in correct order to finish in time including all clearing and washing up. So you need to be prepared to get chicken in oven then start on dessert as it needs time to set in fridge. Then switch onto slicing and roasting peppers, getting chicken breast out of oven and chopping up etc. Some children struggle with switching between dishes and want to do all of one dish then move on to next, but you can't as would run out of time. The dishes you choose have to be matched to Eat well plate. There is written exam where you have to write up your 3 complex dishes and explain your choices eg I used creme fresh for sauce as could use low fat, as already having fat from cheese. DS practiced dishes at home before doing them in school so most mistakes were ironed out at home and so teacher did not see them.

You raise good points about executive function @StrawberryMuffins that could be very tricky but I’m guessing they have 2 years to improve them. Are they allowed to take in instructions? Timers? Alarms? There’s no way she could do something like that from memory.
Huge thanks for that link @luvit super helpful!

It was ds' highest grade. For his final he made fresh ravioli amongst other dishes with high difficulty. Your dd is clearly very able if she's doing triple science, history and MFL so I can't imagine why she'd find the theory much harder.

When she does the practical, she can go in with instructions (like on Bake Off) The preparation will have timings so she can make sure that she's on schedule. DS has ADHD and had me read his instructions before cooking to check he'd not forgotten anything. He appreciated suggestions like washing up while bread is proving is a good idea.

If she is 5/6 on a good day, then she might really want to look again at doing triple science - there is an awful lot of content in that, and it can take up a lot of time, which then might not be easy with a practical subject that is very time consuming as well and that might need a lot of practice time at home to get all the organisational elements worked out.

Is there really nothing else she could take, if she did combined science (still doing some of biology/physics/chemistry, just not as much of each)? Do they offer business or media or drama or anything? What about an extra slot for working on maths, if she really struggles with that - some schools allow students with any sort of learning difference to do one fewer GCSE and have time in a resource centre or similar, not because they're incapable of doing the academic level needed for any specific GCSE, but just because it takes them a lot more time/energy to do the ones that they are doing, get themselves organised, etc., and having both the extra time, and slightly less exams to focus on, can make a huge difference to the ones that they do.

The food course sounds great for future life skills, actually, if it's taught well and not just assumed that the pupils pick up a lot of cooking skills at home. But I can see that it will take a lot of organisation skills, so not ideal to mix it in with a lot of other heavy or difficult courses for her.

My ds wrote and took in a very detailed list of instructions, with all tasks in the order he needed to do them, and timings against them. He used 3 font colours to represent the three dishes, to help him keep track. He also had a similarly coloured list of equipment (school will have equipment, but he had to take in specialist items like the pasta maker and presentation dishes). He was allowed to measure out ingredients in advance, so he took those in labelled tupperware boxes.

You will be able to support your daughter at home with a lot of the practice and preparation, which is good bonding time and helps them with learning organisational skills. It was a very positive experience in our house, despite a few arguments (the first time DS gutted a fish at home, it looked like there had been a massacre in the kitchen and he was almost too traumatised to try again!). 😆

Also regarding the science - if she is doing triple science, and in a class with very able pupils doing that ,will they all be automatically doing the Higher Tier? She might find that particularly difficult if she's only aiming for a 5, say. On the other hand, if it's a school where there is free choice between combined and triple science, where triple is not only done by the most able pupils but those who are interested, and there are different sets where it can be taught at a suitable pace, then it might be a very different story. Schools really vary in how they approach who does triple science and how it's organised. Some schools also timetable maths/science together sort of, and make it very difficult for some doing triple science, for example, to do foundation level maths, as they assume those doing triple science will be doing higher maths.

None of that relates directly to doing food prep GCSE, obviously, but just something to look into to gauge what her workload otherwise might be like and whether it's sensible to do both science and food prep together if they are both going to be quite time consuming or difficult for her with the theory/science elements of it.

It really might be worth looking into whether they insist that she does choose a 9th GCSE after all, or whether she could focus on eight, and choose either triple science OR food, and then have extra support in the remaining time.

p.s. Google and YouTube helped. We quickly learnt that some types of fish are much easier to gut than others. I think he used mackerel in the end.

You’ve all been amazingly helpful thank you.
The norm at their school is ten GCSEs, we are persuading the head to allow her to do 9 as they sometimes allow this for kids with extra needs. So she’ll hopefully have a ‘free’ for homework, extra learning etc. So she can’t drop another to do double science unless she replaces it with another subject and none are really interesting her.
She can’t do drama as can’t remember lines and would hate that. I’ve posted previously about drama and film studies. She can’t watch a film. Gets too distracted after just a few mins in. So we scrapped those. They don’t offer media or business. Other than food her options for a creative are art (she’s not good) or DT (she hates) or music (zero talent). She’s a great dancer/gymnast but they don’t offer gcse dance unfortunately otherwise it’d be a no brainer. So we are left with food- she does enjoy both cooking and baking so this seemed the best choice.
re triple science, 90% take it but the classes are mixed ability. They only set for maths. She’s not doing any foundation level.
Again huge thanks for everyone’s help. I think she’ll be fine if she does a lot of prep at home and we think through possible issues beforehand.