Pre-planning
Samples.
The Toolbox didn't suddenly materialise. The idea had grown over the previous two years. Diana and Carol wanted to replicate the seamless progression happening in food technology from years 7 and 8 into year 9. They wanted to replicate progression through years 9 to 12 so that each student beginning year 13 would have the solid foundation of food technology skills and knowledge required to successfully plan and execute an independent project.
The Toolbox would also provide teachers with information specific to food technology. Carol noted that they were often asked the difference between generic technology knowledge and food technology knowledge. She and Diana didn't want to reproduce a components of practice-type document. The Toolbox aims to encourage teachers to pick it up, use it, and test it to find out if it works for them.
"When food technology was first introduced, teachers would sometimes focus on skills to use in technological practice. But once their students had those good skills they found they didn't have anything to do with them, that they couldn't make the projects any more difficult as they moved up the school.
Rather than making planning or brief writing harder the Toolbox means students can get new material every year on food technology knowledge. They can make their projects technically harder as well as develop those good planning skills. Instead of 'we've done this already' there is always new material they can follow through."
Carol Pound
Choosing topics
They decided to concentrate on five main topics:
- Food formulation
- Food safety and legislation
- Food production
- Food packaging and labelling
- Food product testing
Designing the document
For ease of use these would be organised in the document in two ways under:
- Topic headings to show progression levels, and
- Year levels to show knowledge/skills specific to the level.
To keep things simple, information was mapped onto the year, rather than curriculum level. With three levels of progression – years 7–8, 9–10, 11–12. There would be five topics. A teacher could focus on one topic a term over two years and cover most of the content.
The pair looked at what they'd expect a student coming into year 13 to know, and what tools they should be able to choose from for use in their project work. Then it was a matter of working out the required progression from year 7 to that point.
Classroom.
Classroom.
Choosing what to leave out
The hardest part in developing the Toolbox was deciding what, from a huge subject area, to leave out. This decision was made by assessing what was reasonable for a student of a particular age to learn. For example, sensory would cover only consumer sensory testing. This was because the more difficult technique of trained panels is best suited to university level education. Carol pointed out that they'd tried many things over a five-year period, some successful and others not. So it wasn't a situation of starting from scratch and guessing. They already knew what would or wouldn't work.
Tools chosen to fit students' knowledge
Diana and Carol didn't prioritise any of the tools. A teacher would choose what to use. It would also depend on the students' background in food technology. Jacquey's students enter year 9 with an understanding of the language, some food chemistry, and "a little smattering of everything". Students at other schools mightn't have had any experience in it.
Teachers could select the knowledge they wanted to cover, or a project might lend itself to certain parts of the Toolbox. The Toolbox can be used for projects done over a term or a year. Diana teaches the Toolbox in the first term so that her students can apply it to their project later in the term. This means she can plan her use of the Toolbox to fit around the project.
Diana teaches production with a little bit of nutrition, whereas someone else might focus on nutrition. Those students will still come out with a good broad comprehension of food technology knowledge but with a stronger understanding of nutrition. Carol comments that a teacher enthusiastic about legislation could do a similar thing, with students stronger in that area. "It's not 'you've got to teach all this in five years – go! It's more 'if you're going to teach these areas you need to cover them, but you can still focus on the one you're happy with".
"That's its strength, that it is a toolbox, so if you want to use your spanner most of the time that's fine, but you've got to use a screwdriver occasionally to do whatever you have to do. It's not a 'you must teach this' sort of thing, it's just to give guidance."
Carol Pound
Practical activities balance out theory
There are a lot of practical activities that students can do while they're learning. It is not just theory. If students are learning about a certain functionality of ingredients, they cook with them to fully understand what is happening.
See Delivery for how the Toolbox went in practice.