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Secondary education

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Original poster

Year 9 cookery: would you weigh and pack your DC's ingredients or would you regard that as his/her homework?

25 replies

ThreadieKrueger · 16/10/2008 10:12

Just that. I don't want to be a dragon about it if most other parents prepare the ingredients for their DC (as DS claims). But it does seem to me that preparation is half of cooking and that he should be doing it himself.

Views?

OP posts:
AMumInScotland · 16/10/2008 10:14

Homework - it's part of being able to cook

PenelopePitstops · 16/10/2008 10:16

homework, part of the job

do check it is packed ok tho especially eggs!

seeker · 16/10/2008 10:16

I always get my dd to do it - she's in year 8 - and always have. What's the point of parents doing it for them? As you say, the weighing and so on is part of the job! I do check to make sure the boxes and so on are properly sealed, thought - my niece had a very nasty olive-oil-in-the-school-bag incident last year!

MyChemicalToilet · 16/10/2008 10:16

Both my dd (yr 7 and 9) weigh and pack their ingredients - I agree that it is a part of learning to cook. Along with cleaning up the resulting mess.

Original poster
ThreadieKrueger · 16/10/2008 10:18

Thanks, all of you. I knew I was being a soft touch.

OP posts:
campion · 16/10/2008 16:39

I teach the subject and would say 100%, please get your children to do it themselves - but also be involved enough to make sure they know what they're doing, epecially at first.I do regard it as homework and it would be great if children also helped with the shopping so they had some idea that food costs money!!

I get children coming along with beautifully packed and labelled ingredients and it's obvious that they haven't much of a clue about what they've brought. On the other hand, some children are left too much to their own devices and their weighing is a bit ...err...wrong. I then have to spot this before they start ( it's amazing how tuned in to this you can become) or rescue it as we go along. The latter is a real pain as we're always so tight for time.

I could go on about encouraging them to help clear up after meals / wash up / ( yes, I know there are lots of dishwashers) and clean surfaces, too. I've had parents at Parents' Evenings tell me they don't allow the children in the kitchen as they don't want it messing up. Jeez!

soultaken · 16/10/2008 18:49

My year 7 ds had his first cookery lesson this week and did all his own weighing. To be honest, it never occured to me to do it because

a) it's his homework and we have been told by the school not to do their homework for them and

b) weighting out ingredients is part of what they need to learn.

juuule · 16/10/2008 19:11

I've often wondered why they don't weigh it at school?

twinsetandpalls · 16/10/2008 19:13

their homework.

I would imagine it is so they are not carrying around butter for the rest of the day, speaking as someone whose students were sat in her room today with melting butter and broken eggs.

bellavita · 16/10/2008 19:14

My DS1 (Yr7) has to weigh his own ingredients out. I try and get on with something else at the time then I am not tempted to put my two penneth in.

herbietea · 16/10/2008 19:17

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

juuule · 16/10/2008 19:18

We used to weigh out ingredients at school.
The teacher bought in bulk and we took in the money for most of the ingredients including eggs. If it was something where there might be a preference then we had to take our own in (such as jam). But I seem to remember all the basic stuff was obtained in school during the lesson.

christywhisty · 17/10/2008 16:08

DS's school do that as well Juule. We pay £10 for the ingredients for the term. All e have to provide is a plastic box. Much more sensible.

SqueakyPop · 17/10/2008 17:24

My Y7 child does her own weighing out and packing up her ingredients.

3littlefrogs · 17/10/2008 17:26

Year 9 ??? He should definitely be doing it himself.

campion · 17/10/2008 18:56

Juule - I bet you probably had more than 1 hour for your lesson - weighing out takes time - and who was doing all the shopping and storing of the ingredients? I hope it wasn't the teacher!
I buy in for bread as then I know they've got the correct flour, and keep a working storecupboard of a range of ingredients.Otherwise, I don't demand anything unusual or expensive and it's a useful lesson in getting organised / planning ahead. Too many children are 'spoon fed' as it is.

cat64 · 17/10/2008 19:16

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

juuule · 17/10/2008 19:36

Campion, when I look back I do wonder how long we had for a lesson.
I know we had books and had to write down the ingredients and method etc and go through the theory.
Then the next week we did the practical. We had to measure our ingredients ourselves. They were usually on the teacher's desk or in the cupboard.
I know that when we made bread or pizza, we made it in class from scratch. The bread was left to rise in the drying cabinets. We'd clear away stuff or take notes while waiting.
I contrast this with my children making pizza at school and the ingredient list comprising of 1 pre-made pizza base and toppings.

blueskyandsunshine · 17/10/2008 19:43

This has never occurred to me once. Am impressed.

In year eight -- Ds' ingredients were thundered in straight from supermarket shelves by wild-haired mother (me) ten mins before lesson due to start. So he had to do all the weighing himself. Neither of us was popular with the teacher and I don't recommend it.

Chocolateteapot · 17/10/2008 19:46

I am doing DD's, she is year 5. But by the end of the year I shall expect her to do her own.

campion · 17/10/2008 20:00

That's a bit depressing, juule but I'm guessing they don't have long for a lesson. On the other hand it's one of the dangers when school provides everything that they get job lots of uniform components. It doesn't take long to make a pizza dough ( 10 mins, I reckon) especially if they've previously had a bread lesson.
Your memories of practical and theory lessons reflect my own but these days I get KS3 for 8 week sessions and, as I like them to have lots of 'hands on' practical, we don't have the luxury of lots of background work. If only.
I inherited one of those drying cabinets in my present job. Brilliant for dough rising, rubbish for teatowel drying (they were like cardboard) but it died a few months later so now I have a nice tumble drier and dough rises on top of cookers - anywhere warm in fact. And the room does get rather warm when 10 cookers are on!

juuule · 17/10/2008 20:15

Campion, my children's school didn't provide the pizza bases etc, we had to buy our own. I did suggest they make their own at home but they wanted to take in the same as everyone else.

It does seem a pity that things have changed so much in this area. We learned quite a lot about the food and ingredients we were working with and nutrition. I would have thought that would be a 'good thing' with the drive for healthy eating.

A lot to cram into 8 weeks isn't it?
And I agree about the cardboard teatowels

Original poster
ThreadieKrueger · 17/10/2008 20:18

Thanks very much for all these responses. I'll def be forcing my lazy DS to prepare his ingredients.

OP posts:
southeastastra · 17/10/2008 20:23

i lovingly packed and weighed out my sons for him it didn't occur to me not to really

campion · 17/10/2008 20:35

Yes, sorry juule. Wasn't reading names and threads properly. Blame it on a day spent toiling at the cooker face.

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