Back to school for teachers

Back to school for teachers

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Secondary school cooking teachers across the South Canterbury region are calling for a repeat experience after enjoying what is believed to be a New Zealand first in interaction between secondary and tertiary education providers.

Aoraki Polytechnic hospitality tutors invited the high school teachers to come back to tertiary education for a day and enjoy a cooking skills workshop designed to ensure that all understand the hospitality standard and are preparing their lessons for their students from the same recipe book.

The late January event was so popular the teachers are calling for a repeat and dates are being discussed.

Aoraki Polytechnic chef (eds: note chef) tutor Jill Millburn, who with fellow hospitality tutor Adrian Hilhorst delivered training to the teachers, said the teacher day was well supported.

“It was fantastic to see cooking teachers from Roncalli, Timaru Boys High, Twizel, Geraldine, Mountainview and Temuka all here honing their skills and enjoying the opportunity to align themselves with the tertiary training standards and curriculum,” Ms Millburn said.

Teachers became students for the day in an extremely interactive environment, she said.

On the menu were training and updates in kitchen disciplines such as knife skills, vegetable cuts, salad preparation, pasta and grilling. The afternoon was spent in the coffee room with Front of House tutor Adrian Hilhorst, learning the points of producing good espresso, latte and cappuccino.

“A biggie was health and safety around the use of knives,” Ms Millburn said.

“Now the teachers know what we are looking for when they are assessing their students in all of these areas.”

Roncalli College cooking teacher Cat (crrct) Hansen “cannot begin to say just how valuable the polytechnic day was”.

“We’ve all become better teachers as a result of this,” she said.

“Now we know exactly what the standard is and we are able to present to our students a cohesive and unified teaching standard. It was an outstanding day and Jill was fantastic.

“The science of knife sharpening alone left all of us with new-found knowledge.

“We are already looking for repeat days,” Ms Hansen said.

Ms Millburn said such collaboration between the polytechnic and secondary schools had positive outcomes for young key members of the community – secondary school students.

“I expect through this we will see more students enrolling here because they will have already gained some of the skills and units we will be teaching, placing them at an advantage.

“It allows us to cross-credit them and their potential training and careers in the hospitality sector will have received huge boost.”

She said she had spent “most of the summer” preparing a workbook resource for the schools that outlined the unit standards and this would be distributed “in all its colourful pictorial glory” in the next few weeks.

“The workbook we have generated will be transportable anywhere throughout South Canterbury or New Zealand to anyone who is teaching towards unit standards in any hospitality subject.

“It’s got everything they will need and it’s something that the kids can take away with them and be a useful reference for later,” she said.

Ms Millburn would also be visiting the schools to conduct assessments on a regular basis.

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ENDS

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