The Hospitality Department has had a very busy term, with students being involved in many different experiences.

Senior Chefs Cooking School

Once a week the Hospitality students of Kaiapoi High School are treated to having senior members of the Kaiapoi community come in and use the kitchen facilities, to learn some cooking and nutrition tips. This usually runs for a term and is tutored by Jan O’Callaghan, on behalf of the CDHB. It demonstrates to our students that you never stop learning.

Level 1 Hospitality

In Hospitality, from Level 1 to Level 3, students are expected to wear a full set of chef whites during food preparation. These are provided through STAR funding, and our students wear these proudly. The uniform protects the students when they are working in the kitchen and it protects the food they are working with.

At Level 1, students learn basic knife skills, how to use them safely, cleaning and storage of knives. Safe food handling is a very important part of this programme. Students learn correct techniques for using small equipment like graters and tongs, and about cleaning fruit and vegetables before preparation.

Café Service

This is the first year that Level 1 Hospitality students have started to learn café service. They have been learning about how to set a table from ironing table cloths (Tarquin can use an iron Mum!) to the care of cutlery and crockery.

Pink Ribbon Café

Hosted by Linda Bowen and held on 30th May, I believe this is one of our favourite fundraisers. Hospitality students of all levels were involved, from making cupcakes and selling them, setting up the café and waiting tables, making espresso coffees, working on the till, to preparing and cooking the food. These cafés provide a wealth of authentic learning for students and would not be possible without the supportive customers, usually our staff (teachers, sorry your students were late for their class) and collaborative work from other faculties. The bonus was that the team raised over $700 towards breast cancer research!

ARA Food and Beverage competitions

On 17th June, Alisha Ryan, Grace Hicks, Tayla McKeown, Wiremu Raroa and Cydnee Bowen competed at Canterbury’s ARA Food and Beverage competitions. It has been many years since we have competed in these competitions, and the students did themselves proud, coming away with five silver medals over all of their classes.