Maria McGeeney ( Head of Department)

Alison Acheson

Maria Donaghy

Technician:

Claire Hughes

Key Stage 3

Home Economics in the Northern Ireland Curriculum.

The Northern Ireland curriculum seeks to empower pupils to achieve their potential and to make informed and responsible decisions throughout their lives.  It is about helping pupils prepare for life and work.

• As individuals
• As contributors to society
• As contributors to the economy and environment

Home Economics has a significant role to play in this.  Home Economics provides pupils with opportunities to explore real issues explicitly relevant to real-life contexts.  These experiences lead to the development of a wide range of transferable skills.  Of particular value is the contribution of the subject to the development of skills such as decision making and working with others.

For Home Economics to be relevant in the curriculum it must meet the overall curriculum objectives.  These are, developing the pupils as individuals, as contributors to society and as contributors to the economy and the environment.

Meeting Curriculum Objectives

Home Economics develops pupils as individuals by:

• Helping them explore their health in a practical context, enhancing their potential to live a healthy lifestyle and make responsible choices about their diet and food

Home Economics develops pupils as contributors to society by:

• Giving them a sense of themselves as social beings and how they relate to one another; making them aware of values and lifestyles that are different from their own and helping them make reasoned judgements in family relationships.

Home Economics develops as contributors to the economy by:

• Giving them an awareness of themselves as consumers in a changing economy to help them become discerning and effective when making judgements in relation to the environment and personal finances.

Key concepts:

Ø      Healthy Eating – recipes are chosen to engage pupils and stimulate their interest in food and eating as well as addressing the key principles of healthy eating.  They become more challenging each year and encourage experimentation with foods outside the pupils’ usual experience.

Ø      Home and Family life

Ø      Independent living – practical cookery lessons lend themselves very well to the development of a wide range of skills beyond those associated with food.  For example, there are opportunities to develop self-management skills and skills to promote independence.  Pupils can take responsibility for the planning of their own work and managing their time rather than always following a teacher directed routine.

Key Stage 4

GCSE studies consolidate and extend the knowledge and skills developed at Key Stage 3.  The course provides opportunities for candidates to develop skills associated with:

·        communication

·        personal and social interaction

·        analysing issues

·        problem solving

·        decision making

·        psycho-motor activity

·        investigation

·        reasoning and critical thinking

·        management

·        self-evaluation

·        computer data presentation

Coursework:

A coursework element carrying a weighting of 50% will enable candidates to provide evidence of achievement arising out of the range of classroom activities and processes including practical work.

Post 16

CCEA Advanced Subsidiary GCE and Advanced GCE Home Economics provide a good foundation for higher education courses and for a range of interesting careers.  Both are organized into modules of manageable content, with opportunities for theoretical and practical application, use of  ICT to enhance capability and development and generation of evidence for assessing Key Skills.  Candidates are required to study two compulsory modules for the AS course and a further two (one of which is coursework) for the full Advanced GCE course.

The table below summarises the structures of the AS and A level courses

Extra Curricular

At all Key Stages there are opportunities to involve various outside agencies e.g. Energy Advice Service, Environmental Health Dept., LoughryCollege, Gingerbread, Dairy Council, Livestock and Meat Commission, N.I. Consumer Council and Sea Fish Industry Authority in the form of speakers, educational visits and competitions.