11 Plus Exams Forum

DD has always loved baking, cooking etc and was so looking forward to Food tech at secondary.

However she is struggling with the 'evaluations' she has to do after every bake. For the bakes themselves, she scores very highly. We certainly enjoy the end result.

At first they had a 'smily face' chart with a section for comments. She was told her comments were too brief, (though she had filled the box, big writing.)

Now they have moved away from the charts to writing, including a break down of costs. She got her first one back marked today. Again the comment was 'not enough detail'.

Can anyone point me in the right direction of a good example of a food tech evaluation please. As she has baked a very nice pineapple upside cake today, she has yet another to do and now dreads them as she doesn't really understand what else she has to write.

(And don't say ask the teacher, they all think she is a bit scary )


Thanks

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesi ... rev1.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resources ... ent-60012/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

TES is free to join and is not just for teachers.

I find it difficult to understand why the school would not start them with a template or an exemplar. How is the comment 'more detail' helpful in knowing WHAT is missing?!

Guest55 wrote: How is the comment 'more detail' helpful in knowing WHAT is missing?!

Was exactly my thoughts.

Thanks for the links, we will have a look. Having never had to do such things myself I don't have a clue either.

DD has done alot of these, fortunately her school gave her a great booklet to fill in for the year.
I think she had to describe the finished product with regards to appearance, texture, taste. Ask other family members to rate it. Describe what went well, didnt go well during the cooking. Suggest ways in which it could be improved / modified.
She also did several diagrams( I think they are called radar diagrams) which every family member that tasted it filled in in different colours.

That's more or less what she has been doing, including the diagrams. Tbh, I'm not sure myself what more the teacher wants in the way of detail.

As the product of two engineers, DD is not one to write three words when one will do. I suspect that is part of the problem.

Thinking rationally the problem may simply lie in the fact that her cooking results are good.

Ds always seems to do well in these (well, as well as he does in anything) but he specifies things such as the raisins on the surface of his flapjack being a bit burnt, and how he would ensure they were pushed under the oats next time, or for his veggie burgers, how he would have made them a more even shape, put more egg in to bond them, and how in on-site 3 teaspoons of hot chilli powder was too much! (Read for this inedible blobs of mush that fell to bits in the pan)

Get her to make up something and see if the teacher is sated!

Tinkers I have PM'd you an example from one of my DS attempts in Year 7. He's studying an engineering degree now ..

OH is a good source too, Tinkers. His observation was that DD's jam tarts (based on a recipe chosen by me) were not as good as his mum's. His mum's pastry is thinner and nicer. We included that in the evaluation eventually.

Was that before or after he scraped the remaining jam tart from his scalp?

You know me well!

Actually, on that occasion, DD was relieved that there was something to write about. She couldn't do the evaluation immediately as the teacher had her book. Writing an evaluation is a chore at any time, never mind a few weeks after the event.