DT - Food and Nutrition

Hands on skill building covering all areas of preparing and cooking food products, practicing safe handling and preparation of food and clearing down to leave it in a safe hygienic state.

You will learn about good nutrition and portion control needed to maintain a healthy diet.

The ability to follow a recipe and time the cooking process is a key skill.

Identify ingredients and understand their function.

The ability to create several dishes efficiently is a skill for life, and needed for a busy lifestyle and family situation. It will help you to stay healthy, cook from fresh ingredients and feed yourself and your family on a realistic budget.

Starting with basic knife skills and learning how to use equipment safely, you will become more independent and become well organised.

At GCSE level you will develop more specialist skills needed to prepare more complex dishes. To plan a menu, adapt recipes that cater for special diets.

The GCSE practical exam preparation will include menu planning, calculations for ingredients to create a shopping list, costing the dishes and drafting a timeplan to coordinate the individual recipe methods.

All of this planning and preparation is needed for the chosen range of dishes to be made simultaneously so that they are completed at the same time following a time plan in exam conditions, and to carefully present the dishes to be photographed as evidence for the examiner. ( Very much like a Master Chef / Bake Off experience)

Following good hygiene guidelines, safe handling of food and use of equipment, being able to communicate effectively , to plan and prepare food are all valuable skills needed for hospitality and catering job roles.

The ability to be resilient and work independently when necessary and being flexible to also work in a team is also essential for many job situations.

Creating a portfolio of evidence of your research, planning and creation of a wide range of food products is a very important and effective way to prove at interview your skills and food preparation experience. It is a great” show and tell” opportunity when discussing job or training prospects. It proves the ability to be organised, your literacy and ability to use the computer for research and presentation of your work.