Short Non-Accredited Catering Knowledge and Skills Erasmus Project

Project Title

Short Non-Accredited Catering Knowledge and Skills

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; Open and distance learning

Project Summary

SNACKS was a transnational project between Lewisham Southwark College (lead partner), a Further Education college in England, IAL INNOVAZIONE APPRENDIMENTO LAVORO FVG, a non-profit training institution in Italy, Zeynep Mehmet Dönmez Otelcilik ve turizm meslek lisesi, a Tourism vocational school and Venosa Beach Resort & Spa, both in Turkey. Ultimately the project aimed to contribute towards improved skills amongst trainee and new chefs, in conjunction with college and work based learning.

Traditional methods of delivering vocational qualifications are no longer fit for purpose, they lack flexibility and do not match the needs of learners or the requirements of employers. Students who struggle to understand things first time do not always grasp the principles from practical lessons. Limited time in teaching kitchens (in schools/colleges or work placements) mean that it is very difficult to catch up. Groups often have a wide range of abilities and less able students do not always want to highlight that they have not understood, this is sometimes not captured until assessment stage.

SNACKS’ aim was to support vocational trainees in the areas of Hospitality, specifically trainee chefs. It did this by creating online video resources to supplement their main course along with built in opportunities for learners to earn Open Badges as recognition of their subject knowledge. An Open Badge is a digital reward which can be stored inside a student’s ‘digital backpack’ and used to supplement their qualifications when applying for employment.

In the first phase, partners designed the structure of resources, including a range of core skills which are common to all trainee chefs and some local speciality dishes from each partner country. We then created the first 30 resources and piloted them with trainees to inform the final product and review the remaining planned resources to ensure that they were still the most appropriate in light of feedback from the pilot. In total we created over 100 short video resources and accompanying activities such as quizzes. Trainees can complete activities to receive Open Badges.

This lends itself particularly well to a transnational project as core kitchen skills, especially preparatory skills, are international, as are the pressures in a commercial kitchen to produce consistent, high quality food to tight deadlines. The additional resources, including local specialities, will also have international appeal either as familiar or new dishes. For example, English cakes, Italian pasta and Turkish kebabs are already known in most countries, although young chefs might not yet know how to make them, and other dishes

SNACKS targets professional trainees, allowing them to fit their studies around their work and family commitments and to learn at their own pace. The resources are focused on the commercial environment and are available for learners to remind themselves of lessons already learnt in class or catch up on missed sessions. We expect at least 500 trainees to use the resources, although they will not be formal project participants. The actual number of participants was approximately 50 students (attending project meetings, testing resources and providing feedback and assisting with videos, eg as chefs’ assistants) and 40 staff form the four partners.

All three vocational schools offer an alternative form of education to the traditional academic route. Several of our trainees come from disadvantaged backgrounds and often do not live with their parents, either because of geography (in the case of Didim) or because of family circumstances, for example they are in the care of the state or their parents live abroad. We have found that there is a particularly high incidence of learning difficulties such as dyslexia amongst chefs and many also benefit from additional support with this.

We held four project meetings – a kick off meeting in London followed by one meeting at each partner school. Interim meetings took place using Skype. The project working language was English, as this is learned by students at all three vocational schools, although resources were created in all partner languages.

All resources are Open Access, so trainees have full flexibility about how and where to use them.

Trainers now have a bank of materials produced by subject specialists to supplement classroom delivery, with the option to use them as part of their revision programmes or simply allow trainees to use them on an ad hoc basis. The system is fully flexible so that trainees can watch a series of linked videos showing different skills or watch the same demonstration several times if they are struggling to grasp something.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 248101,95 Eur

Project Coordinator

Lewisham Southwark College & Country: UK

Project Partners

• Venosa Beach Resort & Spa
• Zeynep Mehmet Dönmez Mesleki ve Teknik Anadolu Lisesi
• IAL Innovazione Apprendimento Lavoro Friuli Venezia Giulia srl Impresa Sociale