12th April 2013
Winter 2009 - Island ambitions
Guernsey College of Further Education advocates the teaching of cookery skills to everyone from young schoolchildren to college students.
Chef training is taken seriously at the Guernsey College of Further Education. So much so that in April the college was one of six honoured at the Craft Guild’s AGM. This award is recommended by the Vice Presidents’ Council and given to colleges outside the Greater London area for their sterling work in promoting the Guild as well as their catering education.
This autumn Guernsey College’s teaching expertise came under the spotlight again at the inaugural Channel Islands Chef of the Year contest, where Guernsey chefs won both senior and junior titles. One of the forces behind the competition was the college’s programme manager for hospitality and catering Steve Bacon. Currently he is waiting for the green light from Nestlé about sponsorship of next year’s CI Chef of the Year, which he hopes to run in April, and he is working on bringing back the Guernsey Salon Culinaire.
Other competitions the college runs include the Rotary Chef of the Year competition. “We run that here and the Craft Guild’s Steve Scuffell judges it,” says Bacon, adding that it is for secondary and public schools. “We select two budding youngsters who want to compete in the competition and train them for five weeks. Because Alderney is part of the Channel Islands we involve them too. We do some training in Alderney but mainly it’s done in Guernsey,” he adds.
The college is spread over five sites but catering education is on its main site where students have two areas to work in – a production kitchen and a larder kitchen that can take 30 in total. The catering team consists of Bacon, plus lecturers Paul Whitelaw, Paul Wilson and Julie Driver.
“We are a small college but we do NVQ up to level three and cover all the hygiene requirements. All the schools on a specific day will send their year 10 and 11s to do a taster with us. It could be for a term, three terms or five terms.
This encourages them to come on our apprenticeship scheme,” says Bacon.
It’s one of the few colleges that runs an apprenticeship scheme where the government pays students to come to the college to train, he says. “You don’t have that in England.
“We’ve had release students who have signed up for three years or more and then the State of Jersey will pay an establishment a nominal fee per term for the student to train at the college.”
Domestic science is taken seriously in schools which Bacon is pleased about as he says he’s been plugging it for years. “Food technology has its place but what we have found is that kids don’t even know about basic cooking. I do a three day training session for students and also teach them basic hygiene awareness, which is obligatory in law, but for those who do domestic science, it’s good. Teaching life skills is important, such as the year 10 and 11s who learn the methods of cooking. If they choose not to go into catering, it doesn’t matter.
“Sixth formers come to us for survival cookery. They pay for it themselves which shows how well motivated they are. We give them skills for when they go to university about shopping, affordability and how to cook healthily on a budget – soup, spag bog – and they find out it’s a doddle.”
The college also has a restaurant called Future Chefs that can take 40 diners and offers fine dining as well as casual dining, and Bacon proudly says: “We have just won our sixth medal of excellence with the City & Guilds.”
This autumn Guernsey College’s teaching expertise came under the spotlight again at the inaugural Channel Islands Chef of the Year contest, where Guernsey chefs won both senior and junior titles. One of the forces behind the competition was the college’s programme manager for hospitality and catering Steve Bacon. Currently he is waiting for the green light from Nestlé about sponsorship of next year’s CI Chef of the Year, which he hopes to run in April, and he is working on bringing back the Guernsey Salon Culinaire.
Other competitions the college runs include the Rotary Chef of the Year competition. “We run that here and the Craft Guild’s Steve Scuffell judges it,” says Bacon, adding that it is for secondary and public schools. “We select two budding youngsters who want to compete in the competition and train them for five weeks. Because Alderney is part of the Channel Islands we involve them too. We do some training in Alderney but mainly it’s done in Guernsey,” he adds.
The college is spread over five sites but catering education is on its main site where students have two areas to work in – a production kitchen and a larder kitchen that can take 30 in total. The catering team consists of Bacon, plus lecturers Paul Whitelaw, Paul Wilson and Julie Driver.
“We are a small college but we do NVQ up to level three and cover all the hygiene requirements. All the schools on a specific day will send their year 10 and 11s to do a taster with us. It could be for a term, three terms or five terms.
This encourages them to come on our apprenticeship scheme,” says Bacon.
It’s one of the few colleges that runs an apprenticeship scheme where the government pays students to come to the college to train, he says. “You don’t have that in England.
“We’ve had release students who have signed up for three years or more and then the State of Jersey will pay an establishment a nominal fee per term for the student to train at the college.”
Domestic science is taken seriously in schools which Bacon is pleased about as he says he’s been plugging it for years. “Food technology has its place but what we have found is that kids don’t even know about basic cooking. I do a three day training session for students and also teach them basic hygiene awareness, which is obligatory in law, but for those who do domestic science, it’s good. Teaching life skills is important, such as the year 10 and 11s who learn the methods of cooking. If they choose not to go into catering, it doesn’t matter.
“Sixth formers come to us for survival cookery. They pay for it themselves which shows how well motivated they are. We give them skills for when they go to university about shopping, affordability and how to cook healthily on a budget – soup, spag bog – and they find out it’s a doddle.”
The college also has a restaurant called Future Chefs that can take 40 diners and offers fine dining as well as casual dining, and Bacon proudly says: “We have just won our sixth medal of excellence with the City & Guilds.”