This practical cookery course is ideal if you’re aged 16 to 18 and want to become a chef. Leading to the Level 2 Occupational Certificate in Culinary Skills, it develops the skills, knowledge and professional behaviours you need for a career in hospitality and catering.
You’ll gain hands-on experience in food preparation, cooking, kitchen operations and food safety. Working as part of a team, you’ll prepare, cook and finish a wide range of dishes from scratch across every section of a professional kitchen.
You’ll train in purpose-built teaching kitchens and cook for real customers in our pop-up restaurant, and event catering.
What you'll learn
On this cookery course, you’ll learn the fundamentals of preparing and cooking stocks and poultry, and making fermented dough products such as bread. You’ll explore ingredients and discover how tastes, flavours and fusions work together. You’ll also develop core baking skills that could lead to work in a craft bakery, plant bakery or retail bakery.
You’ll learn through a wide variety of experiences, including practical exploration, food science experiments, work and industry experience, customer-facing activities and employer-led projects.
You’ll learn to work safely and hygienically in line with legal requirements, explain menu and recipe information to customers, deliver professional customer service and support sustainable working practices.
Topics include:
- Food safety and hygiene
- Health and safety in the kitchen
- Preparing and cooking meat, poultry, fish and vegetarian dishes
- Stocks, soups, sauces and accompaniments
- Bakery and pastry fundamentals
- Nutrition and healthy eating
- Kitchen organisation and teamwork
- Menu planning and food presentation
- Sustainability and reducing waste in hospitality
How you'll learn and be assessed
Each module starts with hands-on exploration, where you’ll taste, smell and experiment with ingredients, flavours and cooking methods. It ends with you reflecting on what you’ve learned. Along the way, you’ll practise describing your dishes in a way that gets customers interested, and complete guided self-assessment, peer review and formal teaching from your tutors.
Your tutor will track your progress and support you to get the most from your course. Your practical skills are assessed throughout, and your theory knowledge is tested.
Teaching methods:
- Practical kitchen sessions, preparing and cooking a variety of dishes
- Demonstrations of culinary techniques from your tutors
- Theory lessons covering topics such as food safety, nutrition and kitchen operations
- Individual and group activities to build teamwork and communication skills
- Realistic working environments that reflect industry standards
You’ll be assessed through:
- Ongoing assessment of your skills, knowledge and behaviours, with feedback to build your confidence
- Observation of your practical cookery skills in the kitchen
- Producing dishes to industry standards
- Assignments, workbooks or written tasks
- Professional discussions and questioning to check your understanding
- A portfolio of evidence of your work
Progression
After completing this cookery course, you could work in a range of hospitality and catering roles, such as commis chef, kitchen assistant, catering assistant or food production operative. You could also progress to a Level 3 cookery, culinary or hospitality course, or a chef apprenticeship.
Entry requirements
You will need 4 GCSE’s at Grade 3 or above, including maths, and English language at Grade 4.
You’ll need to buy a kit and uniform.
