Cooking and Nutrition

Following the UK National Curriculum students benefit from wide-ranging dishes that have an individual focus and skills-based learning tasks.

With a focus on building confidence, refining skills and creativity students will undertake mainly practical tasks.

We aim to inspire for the future, by exposing students to challenging and stimulating food lessons. Each unit is assessed through a practical and written piece of work completed at the end of the unit.

In Key Stage 3, students study Cooking & Nutrition for half of the academic year and Design & Technology for the other half of the academic year.

Cooking & Nutrition

Food Preparation and Nutrition provides students with a new and exciting food curriculum designed to equip students with an array of culinary techniques, along with knowledge of nutrition, food choice, sustainability and kitchen safety. Designed to inspire and motivate our students, the course is ideal for those students wishing to pursue a career within the Hospitality Industry, or who have a passion for food and is aimed to open their eyes to a world of career opportunities whilst providing students with the confidence to cook with ingredients from across the globe.

Year 10 provides the theory teaching of the course with a focus on five key areas as; Food Nutrition and Health, Food Science, Food Safety, Food Choice and Food Provenance. Students will also have the opportunity to build and refine their practical skills through the production of a wide and varied range of complex and challenging dishes. The theory teachings will form the basis of the final examination which is taken at the end of year 11 and will represent 50% of students’ overall grade.

Year 11 primarily focuses on the completion of two Non-examined Assessment (NEA) tasks which account for the remaining 50% of the students’ final GCSE grade. NEA 1 is a Food Science Investigation Task which will be completed in term one and is worth 15%; NEA 2 will then be completed during the remainder of term one and submitted at the end of term 2. Term 3 will focus on examination preparations. The topic for each task is specified by the exam board and NEA 2 will culminate with a 3-hour practical when students are able to showcase three dishes in 3 hours. NEA 2 is worth 35% of students’ overall grade. Please enjoy an example of a GCSE showcase practical.

For further information and to view the GCSE Food Preparation and Nutrition Specification please visit; https://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/food/gcse/food-preparation-and-nutrition-8585 

Key Stage 5/Sixth Form – BTEC Hospitality Level 3 Subsidiary Diploma 60 Credits

BTEC qualifications offer learners an alternative to traditional academic subjects. They allow students to learn in a vocational context using a more ‘hands-on’ approach. Designed to meet the needs of employers, BTEC’s are work-related qualifications for learners taking their first steps into employment or planning to enter university.

BTEC Hospitality is an exciting, motivating, practical and challenging course. Students will investigate the hospitality industry, and develop a thorough understanding of the types of business that form the industry to provide accommodation, catering and other related services.  The two-year course allows students to experience first-hand real-life hospitality scenarios through visits to hotels, catering and hospitality outlets.  Level 3 Hospitality provides a solid basis for students wishing to progress into hospitality management programme either within a University or a recognised company programme.

This course is well-suited to hard-working, highly motivated students that prefer coursework to examinations. Although the coursework load is significant, the outcome is much more controllable than an examination. In many cases, hard-working students have achieved superb results that have resulted in a strong application to university.

For more information, please refer to our BTEC page