Currently, a higher practical cookery course is not available to pupils in secondary schools.  However it is possible to take N5 Practical Cookery in S5 or S6.  Perhaps you cook at home and want to develop your skills and techniques or maybe you are thinking ahead to leaving home and want to ensure that you can cook for yourself.  You would be condensing a 2 year practical course into 1 year so it can seem quite challenging at first but by Christmas you will have found your feet and the double-periods really help to bring on your cooking skills.

You will be working towards making a three-course meal in 2.5 hours for your prelim and final exam.  You will also build your food knowledge to prepare you for the N5 written question paper.  Practical Cookery involves over 5 hours of assessment - a 2.5 hour practical exam, an assignment to be completed in 1 hours 45 minutes and a 1 hour written paper.  This is a challenging but rewarding course and the more cooking you can do at home the more you can develop your organisational and time management skills - cooking a roast dinner for your family on a Sunday afternoon for instance, would be the perfect way to practise your skills and demonstrate to your family how good a cook you have become.

• Using food preparation techniques and cookery processes in the preparation of dishes 

•  Understanding and demonstrating knowledge of the importance of food safety and hygiene and its application in the practical context 

• Selecting, weighing, measuring and using appropriate ingredients to prepare and garnish or decorate dishes

• Understanding and demonstrating knowledge of the characteristics of a range of ingredients, and their function in a practical context

• Understanding and demonstrating knowledge of the importance of sourcing sustainable ingredients 

• Understanding and demonstrating knowledge of current dietary advice relating to the use of ingredients

• Following recipes in the preparation of dishes and carrying out an evaluation of the product  planning, costing, organisational and time management skills in a cookery context

• Producing, portioning and presenting dishes appropriately