Food for Thought: Event to highlight new opportunities in Home Economics teaching

Home Economics teachers from across the North of Scotland have been invited to attend an event at the University of Aberdeen which aims to address the growing challenge of recruiting Home Economics teachers.

This twilight event – held at the University of Aberdeen on 18 March, in conjunction with Robert Gordon University – has been designed to inform teachers of new links between the universities with the intention of increasing the number of students who eventually train as Home Economics teachers.

In recent years, concerns about the difficulties in finding teachers of Home Economics for schools in Scotland have surfaced regularly. Those teachers leaving the profession continue to outnumber the teachers who enter. Nearly 50% of the Home Economics teachers in Scotland are aged over 50, recruitment has been difficult for several years, and vacancy levels are high. Alongside this, the multidisciplinary undergraduate degrees appropriate to Home Economics in the past are no longer available.

Recently, The Memorandum of Entry into Initial Teacher Education was modified for Home Economics in order to make entry into teacher training for Home Economics more flexible. Consequently Robert Gordon University’s BSc (Hons) in Nutrition and Dietetics has been identified as meeting the criteria for students to enter into professional teacher training.

Yvonne Dewhurst, Lecturer in Education at the University of Aberdeen’s School of Education, explained the background to the partnership, saying, “The School of Education (formerly Northern College) has traditionally been the place in the North-east of Scotland where student teachers of Home Economics would come to undertake their professional training. However with no appropriate ‘local’ degree available in recent years, the number of newly qualified Home Economics teachers has dropped, thus making it increasingly difficult to sustain the subject within schools in the North East.”   

“With the introduction of Curriculum for Excellence and the increased emphasis on diet and health, a partnership between Robert Gordon University and the University of Aberdeen was set up to discuss ways of maintaining and indeed strengthening the current position of Home Economics in the curriculum across the north of Scotland.”

Teachers attending the event, from 6-8pm on Thursday 18 March, will hear from Myra MacKenzie-Fraser, who is a lecturer in Nutrition and Dietetics at Robert Gordon University. She will talk about the University’s Nutrition and Nutrition and Dietetics degrees, and how these can link with the University of Aberdeen’s Professional Graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) programme.
 
Yvonne Dewhurst will outline the PGDE programme at the University of Aberdeen, and provide a tour of the School of Education.  Participants will also have the opportunity of taking part in a workshop aimed at supporting students’ professional development.

Myra Pearson, Head of the School of Education said, ‘I am delighted that we are working together with Robert Gordon University to find creative and innovative ways to increase the routes available for prospective teachers of Home Economics.’

Rachel Creegan, Senior Schools Liaison Officer at Robert Gordon University, is organising the event. She said, “This promises to be an extremely interesting and informative evening. Teachers will not only have the opportunity to find out more about the links and opportunities available for future students, but also to chat to their colleagues from other schools.”

For further information, and to register a place at this event, please contact Rachel on 01224 262048 or via email at r.e.creegan@rgu.ac.uk.

ENDS   

                                         
Pauline Smith / Andrew Youngson
Communications Officers

Robert Gordon University
Schoolhill
Aberdeen
AB10 1FR
Tel: 01224 262389
Email: p.smith1@rgu.ac.uk / a.c.youngson@rgu.ac.uk

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