Curriculum statement – Food Preparation and Nutrition

‘Confident in God’s love for us, we commit ourselves to His service’

Vision:

“Give a man a fish, and he will be hungry again tomorrow; teach him to catch a fish, and he will be richer all his life.”
Lao Tzu (Chinese philosopher)

Food is a vital part of our daily lives and is essential for life. As our students become adults and have busy lives, it is easy to choose food which has been ready prepared. However, it is more nutritious and often cheaper to cook simple and delicious food.
At The Sacred Heart Language College, students will develop their knowledge and understanding of nutrition, healthy eating, food preparation, hygiene, cooking techniques, and sensory characteristics. Our hope is that through Food Preparation and Nutrition, students are provided with a context through which to explore the richness, pleasure and variety that food adds to life.

Aims:

• Give our students vital life skills that enable them to feed themselves and others affordably and nutritiously, now and later in life.
• Encourage the development of high skills and resilience in a safe environment, allowing students to demonstrate commitment and act on feedback.
• Empower students to enable them to follow a recipe and substitute ingredients and cooking methods as appropriate, demonstrating an understanding of food choices e.g. veganism, allergies and healthy eating.
• Develop understanding that will allow students to become discriminating consumers of food products, enabling them to participate in society in an active and informed manner.
• Engage with students to encourage them to understand the environmental factors which affect the inequalities in food distribution on a global scale and give them an understanding of the need to minimise ‘food waste’ starting with their own practise.
• Allow students to explore a number of multicultural perspectives concerning food and diversity within our community. Students will enhance their understanding, appreciation and acceptance of people from a variety of cultural backgrounds through the preparation of food from different countries.
• Pupils are shown links to different curriculum areas in order to develop a set of transferrable skills they can enjoy in school and use in the future working lives.
• Teacher and peer assessment is used as a means to monitor pupil progress and provide information in relation to attainment on a national scale. This helps to form a basis for individual action plans so that they are able to achieve high grades at GCSE.
• Pupils are guided to the opportunites a qualification in Food Preparation can lead to other than becoming a chef for example, Nutritional therapist, Food Technologist, Community Education Officer or a Sports Nutritionist.