Focus on Food

Citation

Cormac, A. (1999), "Focus on Food", Nutrition & Food Science, Vol. 99 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/nfs.1999.01799baf.001

Focus on Food

Focus on Food

Introduction

In June 1998 the RSA launched the Focus on Food Campaign, a major education initiative with the aim of raising the profile of food education in Britain's primary and secondary schools. The Campaign sets out to highlight the importance of practical food education for young people and strengthen the position and status of food in their learning.

Background

The RSA, founded in 1754, has a distinguished history as an instrument of change and a record of establishing a number of different educational initiatives.

The Society's recognition of the importance of food and nutrition began in 1873 when it established the National Training School for Cookery, set up the first public examinations in domestic economy and proposed the first National Cookery Curriculum. Throughout the 19th Century, the Council of the Society encouraged experimentation with new food products and food preservation methods.

The emphasis for Focus on Food today, is very different from those early RSA initiatives. It seeks to secure, support and augment the teaching of food as an essential part of the National Curriculum. The Campaign focuses on the making and cooking of food as the key experience in learning about the social importance of food.

Focus on Food builds on two initiatives completed in 1997, the QCA (Qualifications and Curriculum Authority) Food in Schools project and the RSA's Cooking Counts event. Food in Schools explored ways in which schools could develop work with food specialists to extend pupils' food experiences and enhance curriculum content. Two booklets, Food in Schools: "Planning a Project" (QCA, 1997a) and Food in Schools: "Ideas" (QCA, 1997b) were produced and distributed to all schools in England. The RSA Cooking Counts event (RSA, 1997) incorporating lectures and a practical cooking session with children engendered further interest and a drive in support of practical food education. Focus on Food carries forward the work of Food in Schools and Cooking Counts.

Why Focus on Food?

Focus on Food has identified a number of concerns in the way food education is delivered in primary and secondary schools.

The Campaign is set against a background of the National Curriculum, shortly to be revised, and where food is an optional component of Design and Technology, not a subject in its own right.

In primary schools, if practical food education takes place, that is, hands-on cooking, tasting, eating and often sharing of food, it may incorporate aspects of learning in a number of subjects. The links may vary, for example, mathematics, understanding proportions, quantities, weighing and measuring of ingredients, or through science, the effects of heat, mixing or separating ingredients, or history and geography where children learn about different sorts of food, what food used to be like and where it comes from.

It should be noted that facilities for cooking are likely to be limited in primary schools to a mobile cooker and mobile equipment storage unit. Few primary schools have specialist purpose-built facilities for practical food teaching in contrast to secondary schools.

At secondary level, food education frequently focusing on industrial practices and with an emphasis on product development, is almost always delivered through the subject of Design and Technology implemented in 1990. The subject replaced mainly craft-based ones, amongst them home economics, which was the key location for the teaching of practical food education including cooking skills, health and nutrition. In schools in Scotland and Northern Ireland a more central role for cooking is retained in the curriculum and indeed a limited number of schools in England still offer home economics-based courses in the lower school. It is also offered at GCSE examination level.

Overall, in both primary and secondary schools teaching of nutrition and food hygiene takes place in science and there is no guarantee of linking, cross-referencing or application of that knowledge in cooking or related practical food work carried out in design and technology. There seems little point in purveying nutrition advice about healthy eating if people lack skills to implement it.

In short, the purpose of Focus on Food is to secure and protect the place of practical food education in the curriculum. The Campaign believes that the making and cooking of food is the key experience in learning about the social importance of food. The loss of such education removes a significant contributor to children's acquisition and application of knowledge and the development of key skills, for example, the application of number, communication, problem solving and working with others. This is in addition to the already acknowledged benefits of food education in achieving a healthy diet.

Focus on Food launched a three-pronged strategic programme in June 1998. The three interlinked elements are:

1. 1.

   The establishment of an annual Focus on Food Week.

2. 2.

   A research programme.

3. 3.

   A teacher education and curriculum development programme.

Focus on Food week

Focus on Food week is a school-based celebration of practical food activities delivered through design and technology or linked within other areas of the curriculum. The aim is to encourage schools to give pupils practical experience with food. A pilot group of almost 600 schools, primary and secondary, registered with Focus on Food to participate in the first Focus on Food week in June 1998. An estimated 35,000 children and over 1,000 teachers were involved in the making, eating and sharing of food. In 1999, the target number of schools to register is 1,000 and in the year 2000, 2,000.

Substantial Focus on Food teaching and learning support materials were specially devised and written for schools to use during the week and beyond.

The projects suggested in the 1998 materials incorporated the themes in the QCA Food in Schools booklets:

• •

  involving food experts;

• •

  appreciating and enjoying food;

• •

  nutrition and health; and

• •

  food preparation and skills.

These themes were woven into each project and also related to the "ideas" incorporated in the case studies in the QCA materials:

• •

  exploring ingredients, techniques and cuisines;

• •

  working with restaurants;

• •

  cooking for other people;

• •

  the school environment; and

• •

  food in the past.

In Focus on Food, the main emphasis is on doing. Visits or presentations by experts are seen as an added bonus, extending pupils' practical experience and putting it into a wider context. The Focus on Food projects attempted to recognize the reality of contemporary eating habits and start from the pupils' own experience: they do not emphasize some lost "golden age" of domestic life which may have no reality for them.

For both phases, primary and secondary, four kinds of material were produced. First, theme folders which presented pupils with the contexts for making and eating food. In the primary packs there were five themes:

1. 1.

   Tea time ­ concentrating on making tea as a drink and as a meal.

2. 2.

   Lunch box ­ emphasising creating a good balanced meal to be taken to school.

3. 3.

   Cookery nook was about creating a café and café food.

4. 4.

   Eating outside ­ was about picnics and barbecues.

5. 5.

   Festival of bread ­ concentrated on different kinds of breads and traditions.

For secondary schools five units of work were provided:

1. 1.

   It's cool to cook ­ highlighted the work of people who cook for a living and the skills needed for food preparation, cooking and making.

2. 2.

   Dish it up ­ focused on dishes to eat as part of school meals provision.

3. 3.

   Off the shelf ­ looked at the creative use of ready prepared ingredients.

4. 4.

   Ready steady go cook something out of nothing ­ was about making the very best out of limited resources.

5. 5.

   Food with friends ­ concentrated on creating and sharing meals together.

All primary and secondary school themes emphasised the cultural and social importance of making and sharing food.

Second, foundation activities in the form of cook cards for primary schools and "how to" cards for secondary schools were included. These photocopiable sheets included simple recipes, advice on safety and use of equipment for primary schools and for secondaries, advice to support designing and making food.

Third, reference folders which provided teachers with information to support themes and foundation activities were provided.

Lastly, the teachers' notes contained short sections on the rationale for food education, advice on project management, working with food experts and industry partners, basic nutrition and project documentation. Focus on Food does not ignore the issues concerned with practicalities of teaching practical food education. Instead it seeks to address them by providing teachers with realistic projects and contexts deliverable in school settings with a range of resources from limited cooking facilities to none.

Research

Accurate data is needed to support the Campaign's case for practical food education in the curriculum as an entitlement of all children. Firstly, schools registering for Focus on Food and thus receiving the materials free of charge, make a commitment to document their activities during Focus on Food week. A clear proforma was provided giving triggers and guidance for completion. The information contributes to the Campaign's research programme and the development of new projects and initiatives.

Focus on Food's Endowed Research Fellowship is based at the University of Reading, Faculty of Education and Community Studies. The three year research programme which began in October 1998 is focusing on the effect of sustained, planned food education in primary schools tracking children's exposure to practical food education, monitoring attitudes, knowledge and understanding. A similar research programme is planned to begin in 1999 focusing on secondary food education and based at a northern university. Both research programmes will use a combination of methods including action-research techniques.

Teacher education and curriculum development programme

Focus on Food's curriculum development initiatives result in detailed case study documentation. They chart a range of processes in teachers' planning, delivery and management of practical food work in a number of schools, provide a range of data and material for analysis and dissemination of models of good practice to teachers and those in teacher training, students and tutors.

The curriculum development work, the trialing of materials and the initial and inservice training of teachers, primary and secondary, is intimately entwined in the programme of the Campaign's mobile resource unit ­ the cooking bus. The principal role of the cooking bus ­ not actually a bus in the conventional sense, but an expandable pantechnicon, is to provide a practical facility for teacher training. The cooking bus is large and it is equipped for 15 adults or children to cook, sit to hear a lecture, receive training or to watch a demonstration or review a case study report.

The cooking bus programme supports all the elements of the Campaign in its extensive and geographically-widespread programme of inservice training for teachers' developing and extending models of delivery of food work in their schools through structured curriculum development initiatives, help for teachers, governors and parents in developing food education in their schools, including whole school approaches to food in education.

Conclusion

Focus on Food is a five year Campaign with the aim of securing the position of practical food education in the National Curriculum ensuring that it is an entitlement of all children. Whilst the reviews of the National Curriculum in 2000 and 2005 will provide an opportunity for the Campaign to state its case strongly backed by the evidence from Focus on Food's research, the Campaign's teacher education programme, work in schools, curriculum development and case study materials, there are other benefits which should not be overlooked. Food is interesting and fun, eating well-prepared quality food is a pleasurable experience. For most young people, regardless of their age, culture or experience, preparing food and eating it together and through those activities, exchanging views and relating their experiences, builds relationships. These elements are important, they are fundamental life skills.

For further details about Focus on Food contact The RSA at Dean Clough, Dean Clough, Halifax HX3 5AX. Tel: 01422 383191; Fax: 01422 341148; E-mail: linda@design-dimension.co.uk

Anita Cormac is the Director of Focus on Food, RSA.