How to be a chef - Cookery course for 16-25 yr olds
How To Be A Chef is Square Food Foundation’s flagship cookery course for 16-25 year olds. The course is free to attend and includes 12-weeks of interactive, fun, confidence-boosting cooking. It is designed to support young people who are not currently in full-time work or education.
Thank you to our funders The Linbury Trust who enable this course to run and to our media partners Bristol 24/7 for all their support.
What will you get out of this course?
The How To Be a Chef cookery courses offers a variety of specific cooking skills and experiences as well as the opportunity to develop a range of transferable skills.
When you join this course you will have the opportunity to achieve and experience all these things:
Level 2 BTEC qualification in Home Cookery
Level 2 Food Hygiene Certificate
Develop your cooking skills and confidence through hands on cooking sessions with our expert team
Gain experience in event catering with Square Food Foundation’s catering chefs
Be inspired by workshops from guest chefs and visits to local food producers
Go on an amazing food tour of Bristol’s wonderful restaurants where you can learn from chefs and sample their delicious food
Develop valuable transferable skills including time management, team-work, working without supervision and confidence engaging with new people
Develop your ideas and ambitions about what employment or training you would like to take up at the end of the course
Be supported to feel comfortable and confident to be yourself
Develop your CV
Have the opportunity to work with a mentor and the end of the 12-week course.
Supporting you with cooking and confidence
How To Be A Chef is about learning to improve your cookery skills and developing your knowledge and passion for food.
Another important part of the course is to develop your confidence and self-belief. These are also skills that are invaluable for your future.
Pastoral care is an important element of the course and all the team running the course strive to support the students to feel safe and at home in the Square Food kitchen.
Your 12-weeks with us is an opportunity to develop skills that will improve your confidence when applying you apply for opportunities after the course finishes. We encourage students to take responsibility for themselves to they can feel empowered to apply for jobs, set goals and work to achieve them
What’s it like to be on the How To Be A Chef course?
Recent graduates shared this feedback about the cooking course:
“Everything about the course has been great, but if I had to choose it would be the comfortable environment made by the whole team. Sitting down for lunch together every day and sharing the food we had made was lovely and very wholesome, and this family meal really aided the comfortability and ability to ask questions/ask for help throughout the course to facilitate learning.”
(December 2024 graduate.)
“The culture inside the kitchen was always positive, and whenever I needed assistance or guidance, there was always someone around to help. Additionally, the variety of skills meant that I could both play to my strengths and improve on my weaknesses. One of the most interesting days was spent on a farm, going through the entire process from harvesting to prepping all the way to cooking and serving a hearty meal.”
(December 2024 graduate.)
Apply to join How To Be A Chef
The next course starts on Wednesday 23rd April 2025. The course runs every Wednesday and Thursday, from 10am-4pm until Thursday 16th July. There will be a break during the May half term.
If you would like to apply, or make a referral, please fill in the form below. We will get back to you within 3-5 days to arrange an interview. The interviews will take place in the last week of February and the first week of March.
