DESIGN TECHNOLOGY & FOOD PREPARATION AND NUTRITION
Learning journey & curriculum
food technology learning journey 7 11.pdf
food technology learning journey 12 13.pdf
We have a fantastic opportunity to teach students from a fully comprehensive cohort, who can offer us breadth of experiences, talents, and interests. In our subject we aim to offer students opportunities to embrace their ambitions and encourage them to explore. Our local context and parental network are hugely supportive and provide many opportunities for extracurricular visits and collaboration enhancing our specialism.
Our aim is to transform lives by providing a curriculum that allows students to become skilful, resourceful, and sustainable citizens whilst making healthy well-informed decisions. It breaks down traditional stereotypical gender viewpoints equipping them all with skills for life. All students gain a range of practical skills and knowledge to equip them to lead healthy lives with an appreciation of the life cycle of products and their impact on the wider environment. In such a diverse society, we aim to teach students to have an appreciation of social, moral and ethical decision making through introducing students to cultures that they might not have access to for example through our Day of the Dead unit.
We are passionate about our subject and want to inspire futures, focus on developing students' ability to talk like, write like, and think like Designers and Chefs through the structure of our course in which students research, plan, execute and evaluate their projects.
In terms of creating opportunities, our curriculum offers a range of projects in which students gain exposure to a range of materials/ingredients and processes gaining realistic and comprehensive understanding of the diverse career paths in Design and Food. This approach ensures that students are well-prepared and informed about their future professional opportunities within a wide range of industries.
Design Technology and Food gives students the opportunity to apply knowledge through mastery at a level that is suitable for them or beyond by giving them the opportunity to aspire to be the best they can be using high-quality exemplars and challenging projects for example in the meals they design and prepare or the design projects completed.
At KS3 students gain confidence in their practical skill by manufacturing products that challenge different skills e.g. measuring, cutting, finishing. The application of skill to produce high quality outcomes whilst gaining knowledge about the materials/processes and the world around them is key at this stage.
At KS4 practical tasks are aimed at encouraging students to be independent learners, although scaffolded tasks are still in place. As the course progresses the students are expected to become the master of their own project to independently develop products/dishes through investigations into contexts and by KS5 Students are expected to be independent and use the subject specialist as reference to guide them towards areas of further research and mastery. They conduct detailed investigations into contexts, materials and processes to solve problems identified through critical investigations.
Our curriculum and staff support students with SEN and emotional and mental health difficulties by nurturing their needs to gain in self-confidence within the subject area. Our curriculum seeks to close gaps between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged students by ensuring our lessons are relevant to all and providing subject specific support materials and extra intervention sessions when required, as well as by allowing students to develop products/dishes that build on their own interests and skills.
Whilst our KS3 curriculum offers opportunities for students to learn about other cultures, the KS4 curriculum also offers opportunities for students to learn about moral and ethical implications of design. The KS5 curriculum builds on this to enable students to be mindful of this when designing their own products.
The KS3 curriculum introduces students to safe working practices and core knowledge, developing the foundations to be built on throughout the key stage. This grounding in basic principles and approaches forms the basis for more complex products/dishes and critical thinking skills developed over the years. Students are introduced to key vocabulary throughout KS3 that is intended for them to talk like a designer/chef.
At the start of KS4 students develop their core knowledge and then focus on Timbers as a specialism. For Food Preparation and Nutrition, theory work is designed to increase student knowledge of core topics such as nutrition. In both areas students undergo mini practical tasks to develop their practical skill-set, in preparation for their independent coursework projects.
At KS5, theory content involves detailed knowledge of materials and process and critical analysis of research, contexts, and past and present designers. This knowledge is assessed through past examination questions, with added focus on exam technique to help support the transition from GCSE to A level. Opportunities arise for mini practical projects to continue the development of skills and mastery. Before embarking on students’ own project, developed through investigations into contexts, critical evaluation, design, development through the iterative design process.
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