The Food Teacher Professional Portfolio
Case study - Cindy Barton, The Constance Bridgeman Centre
Introduction
I am 51 years old and currently studying for my QTLS. I have been working as an instructor and currently teach at a KS4 Pupil Referral Unit in the London Borough of Redbridge. Our students have either been permanently been excluded from main stream school, are on a managed move or respite. I currently deliver six different programs of study, two of which are BTEC Home Cooking Skills Level 1 & 2 and GCSE Food Preparation and Nutrition. I introduced BTEC Home Cooking in 2013 and received a great review invigilator review, which inspired me to introduce Level 2. We have successfully achieved a mixture of level 1 and 2 results since.
Food Teachers Professional Portfolio Programme
I heard about the programme after attending a conference introducing the new Food Preparation and Nutrition qualifications. I wanted to see if they would be accessible for our more capable students. I decided to introduce the qualification this year and so far most of our students are coping with the program of study. The GCSE qualification has highlighted areas for CPD. I have attended a twilight session covering three food science tasks which was also a great opportunity to network with other food teachers. I have also signed up for further training where and I am hoping to learn more about preparing students for the two NEA activities as the food science part of the GCSE is going to be a challenge.
After attending the twilight session I came back into school feeling inspired as everything made a bit more sense. The activities and resources supplied allowed me to put together a lesson that our students could understand, get involved with and find interesting. The lesson felt a bit like ‘baptism of fire’ but being so fresh in my mind I was able to reflect on how the lessons went and I adapted the resources created to meet the needs of our students.
I like the idea of and am really interested in the webinars. I have not actually been able to take part in one yet but think it’s a great resource to have access to.
I have already started collating information to put into my portfolio folder. The more courses I attend and complete online increase my confidence in teaching Food.
It is great to be able to gain access to resources that other teachers have used rather than re-inventing new one and also be able to tweak them to my teaching and students’ experience. I have also taken to getting students to complete feedback forms after completing Food Science Activities.
Being a non-specialist, the program has allowed me to grow in confidence and increased my knowledge and understanding of teaching Food. I really enjoy networking with other teachers and have found it really interesting comparing information about our different backgrounds.
There is a big part of the new GCSE that I am still getting my head around, but know that there is a great group of people that I can go to for information and ideas that would not make me feel uncomfortable approaching them. ONWARDS AND UPWARDS.
June 2017