February 2014
Nursery rhyme inspires PGCE students
Read time: approx 1 mins
In the manner of Little Miss Muffet, UCB postgraduate students have been eating their curds and whey. Fortunately for them, that’s where the day’s similarities ended!
On Friday 7th February PGCE students hit the UCB kitchens to learn about making dairy products from scratch so they can then teach the recipes to children. Changes to the new national curriculum mean that there is now a heavier focus on design and technology, and children will be spending more school time in practical food sessions.
Mandy Lloyd, Food and Consumer Management Lecturer at UCB, showed the students how to make butter and soft cheese and then supplied a variety of extra ingredients to add, so they could sample the different flavours and textures. These included fresh herbs, dried herbs and veg; for a sweet flavour ingredients like chocolate, grapes, and apples; and even peanut butter and chillies! Mandy said, “The students demonstrated great enthusiasm and created some interesting flavours which everyone enjoyed tasting. This is a great example of how lecturers in different UCB departments can share their expertise for the benefit of the students’ learning.”
Students Tanya Groves, Sophie Haslam, and Emma Collins are all PGCE students wanting to become primary school teachers. They said that the session not only gave them first-hand experience at how butter and cheese were made, but also gave them a good basis for ideas for future lesson plans.
The session, kindly hosted by Mandy Lloyd, was a resounding success. This has clearly given the students a ‘taste’ of using an imaginative starting point to support national curriculum requirements for food and nutrition. All students gained knowledge and understanding of how to support children in their understanding of food processes linked to scientific enquiry through a fun and creative approach.