Home Economics, or Nutrition and Food Science as is taught at A-level, covers a wide range of relevant topics in today’s society.

At junior school level, we study Home Economics where we learn important life skills in regards to cooking, planning and budgeting meals. Home Economics emphasises personal responsibility as you have to prepare meals by yourself and tidy and clean your area and is ultimately rewarding as you achieve something edible that you created. We learn about different lifestyles and diets, as well as marketing within the food industry and how to best remain healthy with a good diet and lifestyle.

The first unit of AS level mainly looks at the principles of nutrition, similar to GCSE but in better detail. You cover topics such as nutritional requirements, dietary recommendations for each stage in the lifecycle and what nutrients are in depth.
Unit 2 is all about your diet and lifestyle and looks at dietary related diseases. It is very relevant as you investigate current research and apply knowledge to statistical trends.
At A2 level, a large proportion of the year is taken up by coursework and practical investigations into nutrition but also cover food safety and quality.

Unlike a lot of schools, Aquinas provides students with cookery ingredients and doesn’t require you to buy them all yourself. It has a wide range of modern facilities which are of high quality and allow students to develop essential life skills and knowledge
in the subject.

Throughout junior school, I always found Home Economics very interesting and relevant to our society which continued onto GCSE. I have always loved to cook and bake and enjoyed how these skills were a strong aspect of HE. At A-level, you don’t cook as much
yet I still find the subject really interesting and enjoyable and hope to continue to study it at university.

– Clare McSorely, Year 13