Food Preparation Assessment NEA 2

Introduction
This resource, Food Preparation Assessment Task 2 is written to match the requirements of the exam boards AQA, OCR and Eduqas for the Non exam assessment Food Preparation Task 2 which contributes 35% of the total mark towards Food Preparation and Nutrition GCSE.

Each exam board has a different mark scheme and uses slightly different wording but the ways to carry out research, planning, cooking, analysing and evaluating follow a similar process.

My aim in this resource is to break down the parts of the exam so that students can see a clear way to produce a portfolio of work within the page limits required. This resource can be used as a Practice Task before starting Exam Board Tasks for NEA 2.

The 3 hour practical is nothing new, and I’ve used a similar method of teaching from when I started in the 1970s. In those days the CSE exam also included things like ironing a shirt, cleaning football boots or starching a tray cloth. So let us be grateful that we have improved!

Challenges that I think you will face are

• The internet provides thousands of recipe choices and students may waste time trawling for ideas – in the 1970s I had a box of trusted school recipes that worked and we used those. So steer them towards reliable websites shown at the end of this resource.
• Creating a time plan with ‘dovetailing’ – there are clever ways to show this with Gannt charts and spreadsheets but I think cutting and pasting onto paper or working on a Word Table work fine.
• Choosing dishes that are highly skilled – I think it is better to cook something delicious and to serve it attractively than to scale up the high skill ladder making flaky pastry and hollandaise sauce. Many high skills are high in fat – think of the pastries and sauces – what about healthier options?
• Nutritional analysis – some of those high skill, fatty dishes are going to make the Traffic light labels go into red alert – so what do you do?! What size portions?!
• Overthinking the presentation of the portfolio – there is a page limit, so think of writing fewer words, use annotations of photographs and charts, and find smarter ways to present things concisely.
• The star profile – I think this is a powerful tool, quick to use and which can present your tasting results and evaluations easily – you can draw one by hand, use Excel, or make use of the Nutrition Program. I know it’s my program, but we have worked hard to make it student friendly.As always my thanks to Dave Smith, a London D&T teacher, for his drawings which raise issues with humour and liven the written word. Dave has been producing drawings for me since 1990, and they always make me smile.
  And thanks to Jill Oliver a retired, long serving HOD with vast food teaching experience who kept me up to date with the new GCSE and helped produce this resource.