Ways to help and support your child with their progress in any Food course/curriculum
For ALL students in ALL years, the best way you can help reinforce and further develop their practical skills is to get them in the kitchen at home. Consider the following ideas:
- Ask them to make the food product they have recently made in school for you again at home.
- Get them involved in any way in the preparation and cooking of the daily evening meals.
- Give them the responsibility to plan and make a particular dish, maybe for a particular event such as a family birthday.
Make food and meals times an enjoyable event and discussion point:
- Use the time to discuss where the food comes from, how it has been processed, prepared and produced.
- Pose the following questions whilst eating: What nutrients does each food give us? What jobs do these nutrients do in our bodies? Is consuming the food regularly linked to certain health conditions, be it positive or negative?
Allow your child to watch TV… well at least food related programmes!
- TV programmes like Masterchef, Great British Bake Off and celebrity chef programmes often inspire and motivate students to develop a love for good food and encourage them to get in the kitchen and give cooking a go.
- A large number of food related documentaries cover certain theoretical aspects of the Food Preparation and Nutrition course. For example: looking at how families can save money on their food shopping and reduce food waste; the environmental impact of food production including carbon footprint; growing your own fruits and vegetables; food poverty and world hunger; new and novel foods that are developed including genetically modified foods.
For KS4 Food students to support with the theoretical aspect of the course, we strongly urge students to undertake lots of independent reading. The best book for this is the text book that accompanies the course. We have a digital version of this text which also has interactive quizzes and links to websites and videos etc. within it. It is totally free for students to access, they just need to get the web link, username and password from their food teacher in school.