Skills you learn from Food Preparation and Nutrition (Year 9)

Food Preparation and Nutrition builds an unusual mix of skills - practical cooking technique, an understanding of nutrition and the body, food science, planning and costing, and food safety and hygiene. This lesson plan will help you to show Year 9 students the skills Food Preparation and Nutrition builds.

This lesson is designed to be delivered in 30 minutes as a teacher-led classroom activity.

This activity supports the following frameworks:

  • Gatsby Benchmark 4

This activity is suitable for Year 9 and features careers linked to the following subjects:

  • Food Preparation and Nutrition

This is one of three lesson plans for teachers introducing Food Preparation and Nutrition to Year 9 students:

These lesson plans will help you show students how Food Preparation and Nutrition connects to their future careers.

We recommend using this lesson plan at the end of the autumn term. Food Preparation and Nutrition isn't usually taught as a standalone Year 9 subject, but most students will have done some cooking at school in earlier years and at home. Drawing on that gives students real material to reflect on, and sets them up for GCSE choices in the spring.

Learning objectives

  • Students will understand that Food Preparation and Nutrition builds a broad range of transferable skills.
  • Students will be able to name 2-3 skills the subject builds and give examples from their own experience.

Before the lesson

  • You will need a computer connected to the internet and a classroom screen.
  • Open the What can you do with Food Preparation and Nutrition? page and have it ready on the screen.
  • Review the Skills that Food Preparation and Nutrition builds section and think of examples students will recall - cooking they've done at school in earlier years, dishes they'll have helped prepare at home, and basic nutrition or food safety they've picked up along the way.

During the lesson

1. What have you cooked? (5 mins)

  • Ask students to call out things they've cooked or helped prepare - either at school in earlier years or at home.
  • Prompt them: meals they regularly help with, dishes they've cooked from scratch, things they've baked, snacks they make for themselves.
  • Write the suggestions on the board and highlight any patterns.

2. Skills that Food Preparation and Nutrition builds (15 mins)

  • Bring up the What can you do with Food Preparation and Nutrition? page on the classroom screen.
  • Review the contents of the page with students so that they understand what it covers.
  • Scroll to the Skills that Food Preparation and Nutrition builds section and work through each skill in turn.
    • Ask students where they've encountered that skill - in school food lessons, at home, or in what they've learned about diet and health elsewhere.
    • Share your own teaching examples if students are stuck.

3. Making it personal (10 mins)

  • Ask students to pick 2-3 skills from the list they feel they've started to develop.
  • Go round the class, asking each student to name one skill and give an example of when they used it.
  • Close by reminding students that these are valuable skills for work and life, not just for exams.

After the lesson