GCSE Food Technology covers a wide range of topics, including special diets, sports nutrition, multicultural, celebration and sustainability.
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Over the course of two years students will develop a whole range of creative designing and making skills, technical knowledge and understanding relating to food products and invaluable skills such as problem solving and time management.
Topics covered in the theory lessons include:
- Nutrients, nutritional analysis, dietary guidelines, individual requirements, special diets, ethnic and religious groups.
- Primary and secondary foods.
- The functional properties of ingredients.
- Preservation and food processing ( in the home and in industry )
- Additives and standard components
- Production methods.
- Recipe development.
- Analysis and evaluation of food products.
- Packaging and labelling.
- ICT and CAD/CAM in the food production line.
- Health and safety as well as quality control in the food industry.
- New technologies linked to food – biotechnology.
- Moral, environmental and cultural issues.
Practical Lessons
At the beginning of the course students are introduced to a variety of practical skills. As the course proceeds they are made familiar with the Design process and have opportunities to practise this with short Design and Make activities. This is in preparation for the major coursework task.
Assessment
Written examination – 1½ hours, 40% weighting. This will be in the form of multiple choice, short answer, design and extended writing type questions.
Coursework – 40 hours of teacher supervised work, 60% weighting. Edexcel will provide 5 broad themes and students will choose one of them. Initially these will be: Special Dietary Needs, Vegetarians, Sports Nutrition, Multicultural and Celebration. These themes are to be reviewed every two years. An A3 portfolio of approximately 20 pages is produced to supply evidence of the Design and Make task carried out.
There are 4 lessons each week. Usually one double is a practical lesson and one double is a theory lesson.