Food, cooking basics, and body literacy, delivered weekly by the learner’s named practitioner. The elective answers the practical question “how do I eat well, sustainably, and in a way that fits this body and this life?” — without moralising, without ranking foods as good or bad, and with explicit care for learners with disordered eating histories.
What this includes
- Cooking basics — five or six foundational recipes a learner can adapt for life (something for breakfast, something quick on a hard day, one comfort food, one social food, one cheap-and-filling, one nutrient-dense)
- Food shopping and budgeting — comparing cost per portion, making a shopping list, batch cooking, freezer use
- Body literacy — what hunger feels like, what fullness feels like, the difference between thirst and hunger, recognising when a low mood needs food
- Food and energy — the relationship between what you eat and how you feel, without prescribing a single right way
- Cultural and family food traditions — food as identity, family, memory; the right to keep traditions that don’t conform to a “balanced diet” template
- Special diets — vegetarian, vegan, halal, kosher, allergies and intolerances; how to live with them practically
Cornerstone fits
Nutrition (●●●) — the explicit Cornerstone anchor. Rest (●●) — eating well supports rest. Movement (●●) — fuelling the body for movement.Connection (●●●) — eating with others is one of the most universal forms of human connection.
Cross-curriculum links
- KS4 Science — Nutrition, digestion, and energy (the biology behind the elective)
- RSHE — Health Education (healthy eating; the relationship between diet and mental wellbeing)
- Independent Living — Daily-life self-organisation (cooking, food shopping, batch cooking — shared skills)
- Financial Literacy — Money basics (food budgeting)
- Functional Maths — Measures (recipes, conversions, scaling)
Care note for delivery — non-negotiable
Nutrition work with NEO’s cohort requires explicit safeguarding framing because of the prevalence of disordered eating in the EBSNA / SEMH learner population. The 2026 RSHE guidance is clear that body image and disordered eating need positive, non-stigmatising approaches.
- No food moralising — no “good” and “bad” foods; no labelling diets as superior
- No body-comment, no weight-talk — neither from the practitioner nor permitted between learners
- No tracking of intake or weight — even in the elective context
- Trauma-informed — for learners with eating disorder histories, body-literacy work can surface difficult sensation; practitioner training is a precondition
- Signposting — Beat (national eating disorder charity) and the National Alliance for Eating Disorders (per the RSHE Mapping v0.1 — NEDA is permanently closed and should not be referenced) are the appropriate signposts when an elective surfaces clinical-level concerns
The pedagogy is: food is for nourishment, pleasure, and connection; you have the right to a peaceful relationship with it.
Suggested evidence types (if kept)
- A working personal recipe collection — the dishes the learner has made their own, with notes on adaptations
- Food shopping budget exercise — a week’s eating planned and costed
- Reflective writing on the learner’s own relationship to food (private; can be kept entirely in the personal portfolio if the learner chooses)
Not assessed
No mastery scale, no grading.