Finger Food for 300
Class: Years 7/8 Food Technology
Teacher: Heather Whaikawa
School: Manaia View School, Whangarei
Category: Teaching activity
Time: Friday – Technology day
Northland's new Regional TV station Channel North launched its Pukeko Echo Television (PET) project at Manaia View School in August 2008. School principal Leanne Otene, offered to take responsibility for catering and asked 'food specialist' and HOD Technology Heather Whaikawa to take on the job.
Heather originally planned to use a local commercial caterer, but then found that the original 40-person guest list had ballooned out to 300. Budget constraints meant that she would have to do the job 'in-house', so she decided to offer the task as a Technology project to a small team of the school's Year 7 and 8 students.
She presented the students with the brief: "To successfully plan, cook, present and serve a fantastic array of nibbles to 300 guests at the black-tie launch". After talking it through, they decided to accept the challenge.
Work started immediately, on researching the brief and developing an action plan. The students researched professional advice on menus, servings, presentation and purchasing. Stakeholders were identified and consulted and a final menu agreed upon. Approaches were made to parents to provide assistance if required.
"We wanted the food to look classy and be tasty, but as a 'Gold Heart Beat Award' school we also wanted to be careful to make sure that it would meet the requirements of a health promoting school," said Heather.
A week before the launch a 'trial run' was held. Appetisers, nibbles, cheese and fruit platters, and the selected sweet were prepared and the stakeholders invited into the school to sample the food and suggest improvements where necessary.
"We received excellent feedback," said Heather "and after taking their suggestions on-board, our planning was complete and we were ready for the big event".
The day of the launch was to prove a long but rewarding one for Heather and the students. The school minivan was commandeered and, at 9am they went to the local supermarket to buy the ingredients, which were supplemented by food that had been donated, and some produce freshly picked from the school's Technology garden.
The original production plan had students working in pairs on individual items, but on the day things were re-arranged to allow everyone to work together on each dish. This provided more variety in the preparation tasks and reduced the possibility of boredom. The group worked solidly through the day with only an hour taken off to go home to dress for the evening formalities.
By 6pm there were trays of food stacked on every shelf, bench top and free space in the foods room. At 7pm it was time to start serving to the large invited audience, which included a Member of Parliament and many local dignitaries.
"The students did an awesome job of presenting the food," said Heather. "Then, after all that, it was on to the final part of the process – making sure that everything was cleaned up." Heather was particularly impressed with the way the students interacted with each other and worked as a group – "always with respect and so very supportive of each other".
Principal Leanne Otene received a huge number of positive comments from the guests. "When I told them that it started as a Technology brief and that everything had been done by the students themselves with very limited adult support, they were even more impressed," she said. "Heather and the group catered for a black tie event with the skills of a professional catering company. This is, I believe, a true example of a health promoting school. I have never been so proud."
Guest and Whangarei District Councillor Sue Glen agreed: "I think what was most impressive was the presentation of the children themselves. They had blue aprons, crisp and tidy with their hair tied back. They played that role extremely well and their manners were beyond belief. The way they passed the food around they did with care. They smiled politely at the little jokes and comments they received. There were some vegetarian savouries and I observed a child, when asked what they were, explaining the content. Here was this unique style of food and the knowledge that the students had was just a bonus."
When asked what advice she would pass on to another teacher who set out to do a similar catering task, Heather said: "It was truly a great experience for all of us and the technological knowledge and practice that occurred was authentic and a true reflection of the nature of technology. If I did it again I'd organise a crew to clean up at the end of the night. Having the 'trial run' was very beneficial – it built student confidence, helped in their abilities to calculate and manage timeframes, solicit and respond to stakeholder feedback and to solve practical problems within the running of a project."
Website: tvnorth.co.nz/channelnorth/pukekoecho
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