College praised for response during lockdown to keep Catering students engaged   

The Catering and Hospitality curriculum have provided hampers with ingredients for their students to cook up meals for the whole family at home and not for just a single portion. The College team package up the ingredients and arrange for students to collect the parcels once a week so that they can produce food for a set of recipes to prepare and cook at home during the current lockdown period.  

The idea was put into action so that students would be able to engage practically whilst in lockdown and not become disengaged or uninterested in their chosen catering course through this lockdown.  

Hamper contents have included a range of ingredients and produce including fish, meat, fruit and vegetables, herbs and spices. The hampers have incorporated themes which has seen students creating Greek cuisine with olive bread, pickled cucumber and Greek tomato tarts. The level three students have also had a seafood hamper and had to make a seafood bisque with contents including muscles, prawns, salmon and cod.  

Mrs Farquharson (Parent) was so impressed with the strategy, they personally messaged the College to praise the department with their pro-active response and said, “We would just like to express our thoughts. Our daughter is currently studying catering Level 2, and while the lockdown and restrictions are on the students have been offered the opportunity to collect ingredients to make meals at home. What a wonderful thing to do and a great opportunity for the students. Plus, they also send enough ingredients to feed the rest of the family. Thank you to Simon for setting this up. Our daughter Millie is really enjoying taking part and it is keeping her busy, and we get tea cooked for us! Well done catering department! Great idea in these difficult times!”  

Simon French (Catering Programme Tutor, and Lead Practitioner) said, “We have had some great feedback from students on how much they have enjoyed having these tasks to do while they are at home.  Once they have finished, they upload pictures of their finished dishes.”  

Simon continued, “It is great for tutors to see students so engaged in doing these tasks, and it benefits them by giving them something to do during these times which are quite difficult for young people. When we received this great feedback from a parent too, it is just fab!”  

Millie Farquharson (Catering student) said, “At first I found lockdown quite difficult, especially doing online classes, but soon got used to it! My tutor has been very supportive, and the catering department have gone above and beyond to keep us learning and improving our cooking skills by supplying ingredients weekly, for us to cook at home. We even had a baking competition to enter during half term. I am really enjoying my course here at North Lindsey College and proud to be a student there.”