Food Preparation & Nutrition Overview

Donna Wallis
Lead teacher Food Technology

Head of Department

Please email Ben Howard – Head of design technology or email Donna Wallis – Lead Teacher of food preparation and nutrition if you need to make an enquiry about food preparation and nutrition.

Curriculum Time

At KS3 all students receive two hours per fortnight of food education. At least one of these lessons will be taught as a practical in our specialist kitchen classroom.

At Key Stage 4 students have the opportunity to opt for the GSCE in Food Preparation and Nutrition receiving 5 hours’ of kitchen time per fortnight.

Homework

At Key Stage 3 students do not receive homework in food preparation and nutrition, instead they are expected to attend all practical sessions with correctly weighed out ingredients. At Key Stage 4, students receive 3 homework tasks per fortnight in addition to the expectations with regards to ingredients.

Class Groupings

All classes in food technology are mixed ability.

GCSE specification

We offer the AQA GCSE in Food Preparation and Nutrition. The course is split: a 1 hour 45 minute examination (50% of the overall assessment) which is taken at the end of Year 11, and 2 forms of non-examined assessment (50% of the overall assessment). Non-examined assessment work begins in Year 11, after the content of the course has been taught in Year 10.

Non-examined assessment

There are two non-examined assessment tasks that all students will engage in. Task one is a food investigation, which includes practical investigations and is worth 30 marks. Task two is a food preparation assessment, which will assess students’ knowledge, skills and understanding in relation to the planning, preparation, cooking, presentation of food and application of nutrition. Task two is worth 70 marks.

Exam

The FPN exam will be sat at the end of Year 11 and lasts for 1 hour 45 minutes. It is worth 50% of the GCSE and holds 100 possible marks