At Croft the food technology room is a purpose-built room used with key aims in mind.
First and foremost, health, safety and hygiene practices are at the forefront so that there is a secure and happy environment for pupils’ creativity to flourish
Our main aims are to:
- build independence
- prepare pupils with skills for life
- educate pupils to make informed choices surrounding diet and nutrition including exposing them to a variety of foods.
- understand the needs and beliefs of others
- give pupils a specialism to help them succeed in the wider world and employment
The facility is used as part of Croft’s ASDAN LifeSkills qualification that runs alongside the pastoral programme. Such challenges include ‘preparing a simple snack’ to the firm favourite ‘running a tuck shop’.
We begin food technology in KS1 where there is a focus on where different food comes from.
This progresses in KS2 to exploring healthy and balanced diet choices as well as incorporating a lot more practical cooking skills.
In KS3, we aim to build children’s confidence by exposing them to a wide range of foods, cooking techniques and equipment. By the end of KS3, the aim is that pupils perform with a level of automaticity and display high levels of independence and can therefore; follow recipes given, watch recipe videos to work at their own pace, have input into their food choices and recipes, use substitute ingredients to understand the needs of others and choose their own equipment in line with hygiene practices.
In KS4, pupils enroll onto a formal qualification. They partake in a variety of modules to specialise in areas of study. With the main aim preparing pupils for the next stage of their education, there are modules around workplace practices and employment, to the more exciting- meat, poultry and fish module as well as the hugely popular pastry module.
The cookery room is often used as part of a needs’-based curriculum for pupils who are struggling with more traditional subjects. It can have a calming effect and keep them constantly busy while simultaneously building fundamental skills that they would get in a classroom environment, but, through cooking.
