Here at Westminster academy, we are offered many student leadership opportunities such as becoming a subject prefect, ambassador and/or member of student council roles. 

I first began applying for these roles in Year 7, however when I entered Year 8, there were many better roles I could compete for, one being a food technology prefect.  I was so excited when I found out about this role, so I applied immediately and went through the tough interviewing process with the Director of Learning for Expressive Arts. I had to explain why I wanted the role and my passion for food technology. 

As a Food Technology prefect, I help with a lot of things, one of them being the catering for the annual summer and winter shows. This year, I will be one of many catering assistants for the summer musical production of Matilda. The summer musical, taking place at 5pm on Monday 10th of July, will be catered for by food tech prefects and students studying food technology as a GCSE/BTEC subject. The fact that here at WA, students have these sorts of opportunities to help organise and sort out extra-curricular activities is part of the reason I chose this school. 

Last time I helped out with catering for the school, I gained many new skills. One of them being piping. I piped some cakes, biscuits and cupcakes. It was such a fun and interesting experience, and I am so excited to do it again with the hope of gaining new knowledge and skill in food preparation. To those of you that come to watch Matilda the musical, I hope you enjoy it alongside our food as we have all, cast and crew, put so much into this event. 

Food Technology as a subject is very informative. In the two years that I have been here, I've learnt so much about cooking and food preparation. Before I came to this school, I didn't even realise that there was more than one way to hold a knife depending on what you were preparing, whereas now I know the difference between a claw hold and a bridge hold. Amongst other things, we have also learnt about the different food groups, and how each one plays a part in our body. One thing that I found really interesting this year was that there is a difference between an intolerance e.g. celiac disease and an allergy. In Food Techology, it's not all theory. We also conduct one practical a week that falls under the term's topic.