Cooking up results.
You are what you eat, or so the saying goes. The Student Chef is a residential cookery experience where young chefs come to develop and play!
Delight your friends and family as you are encouraged to develop your own culinary personality over our 5 night, professionally led, fully immersive cookery course which will culminate in cooking and serving up a fine dining experience for your family at the end of the week.
Feel empowered to take the next steps into independence and bring something special to the table each and every meal time.
Throughout a series of progressive sessions delivered by our dedicated and professional staff team over a 5 day period, each individual will be challenged and supported in their journey to become:
Hygiene focussed
•
Nutritionally aware
A strong team member
•
Responsible
Organised and efficient
•
A confident Cook
Welcome
Your week will begin on the Sunday evening with an introduction from the Head Chef and Pastoral Team alongside your fellow campers. The team will prepare you for the week ahead and engage in some icebreakers during a social BBQ. Following the meal, our staff team will help you to settle in to your accommodation.
Certificates and courses
From the very start of the camp, our team will ensure that you have the necessary skills required to feel confident with every aspect of the course.
Starting with obtaining a food hygiene knowlegde, to make you safer in the kitchen before we get into handling food. Later in the course we will run a 3 hour certified First Aid course to become more prepared for any accidents that may occur in the kitchen environment.
Practical Skills
Over 17 hours of the course have been dedicated to giving hands on experience creating nutritious, delicious food. Each of our recipes have been designed to support skills development and confidence in the kitchen. As well as the practicalities of fitting cooking into everyday life.
Teamwork - An essential life skill
Easy Recipes - Short, simple recipes
Skill classes - Recipes to enhance cookery skills
Classic recipes - Recipes loved by all
Healthy budget recipes - Cheap & nutritious
Workshops
To compliment the hands-on development in the kitchen, supporting workshops have been developed to encompass the culinary experience as a whole and elevate your knowledge on important factors surrounding food. Such as sustainability, responsibility and the impact that it has on mental wellbeing.
Evenings
After dinner there will always be a social activity led by our staff that rounds of the day with a relaxed and friendly atmosphere. After this our night time staff will be available should you need them and will ask you to check in to your rooms by 9pm-10pm (depending on age), lights out between 10pm-11pm (depending on age). Giving you plenty of down time to enjoy.
Fine Dining
The crescendo of the week will be inviting family members to take part in a fine dining experience, designed, budgeted, prepared, served and cleaned down by course participants.
Course Timetable
| Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | |
|
Breakfast |
|
Prepared by on-site staff |
Pancakes with Fruit Compote | Eggs - Many Ways | Acai Bowl & 5-fruit Smoothie | Fry Up |
| Activity 1 | Ice Breakers | Dining Room Design | Food & Mood Workshop | Menu Creation Workshop | Skills Workshop | |
| Activity 2 | Food Hygiene Workshop | Prepare & Cook Lunch | Prepare & Cook Lunch | Prepare & Cook Lunch | Dining Experience Prep | |
| Lunch | Caprese Salad / Mushroom Ravioli | Minestrone Soup / Veggie Lasagne | Rainbow Salad / Healthy Happy Meal | Bean Chilli / Bread & Butter Pudding | 3 Course Family Dining Experience | |
| Activity 3 | Arrival - 4pm-6pm | Knife Skills Workshop | Food Groups Education Session | Food Miles Education Session | Skills Workshop | Departure |
| Activity 4 | Welcome | Set up Kitchen & Dining Room | Prepare & Cook Dinner | Prepare & Cook Dinner | Prepare & Cook Dinner | |
| Dinner | Catered Meal | Bean Koftas / Brownies & Choc Cake | Beef Kebab & Ratatouille / Bakery | Thai Green Curry / Mango Rice | Mushroom Risotto / Bakery | |
| Evening Activity | Dress Rooms and Settle In | Quiz Night | Board Games | Film night | Escape Room |
*Course timetable and recipes are subject to change.
THE RESIDENTIAL EXPERIENCE
Accommodation
We will be staying in Crosthwaite house at St Georges School, Harpenden, which ordinarily serves as the boarding house for the term time students at the school. This is close to the cooking facilities that we will be using for the course delivery. Rooms will be shared with up to 5 other participants on the course with shared bathroom facilities on each floor. There are plenty of communal areas available as well as a garden area which will be used for some workshop delivery when appropriate. Check out our VENUE PAGE for more info.
Facilities
The main course content will be delivered in the purpose-built home economics suite. The suite offers 2 spacious cooking classrooms equipped with 11 cooker stations each. We will be working on a ratio of 2 participants per cookery station to ensure as much hands on practice as possible for all. Dining will take pace in a separate classroom which we are repurposing as a dining room for the course.
Workshops and skills courses will be delivered in the nearby classrooms or outside, weather permitting.
Staff
Our seasonal staff team are put through a rigorous interview and training processes to ensure that we have just the right people for the job. All staff hold an enhanced DBS. Our venue manager will be supported by a team of pastoral and first aid professionals who are equipped to deal with any eventuality on site, as well as support participants with the challenges of being away from home.
The skills based cookery sessions will be led by a professional head chef and supported by passionate cooking instructors.