Home Economics

The central focus of Home Economics as a field of study is achieving optimal, healthy and sustainable living for individuals, families and society. Individuals and families in every society are continually faced with new and emergent issues that can impact on their wellbeing. Such issues include concerns relating to food, nutrition, diet and health; family and social concerns; consumer issues; sustainability in the home; responsible family resource management; and textiles and clothing.

In Home Economics, students learn how to address these practical, real world, perennial problems of individuals, families, households and society in socially responsible ways. Practical perennial problems or concerns are endured from generation to generation by families and require critical decision-making skills to resolve them. Home Economics education uses a systems approach to empower individuals and families with the knowledge and skills to address these real-life concerns of everyday living.

Home Economics draws on diverse disciplines integrating social, physical and human sciences. It strives to solve everyday challenges using a blend of knowledge and skills acquired from multiple disciplines. Home Economics education develops students’ essential life skills and personal independence. It supports the development of students who are critical, creative thinkers and encourages students to be problem solvers capable of making ethically and socially responsible decisions.

Junior Cycle

Statements of Learning

Key Skills

Being creative - Students apply the design brief process in the making of a textile item for the individual or the home.

Being literate - Students demonstrate the importance of effective communication by making a complaint about a consumer issue by letter/email

Being numerate - Students apply their numerical skills in the preparation of a budget; adapting recipe ingredients; weighing and measuring out ingredients; room planning; and measuring fabrics.

Communicating - Students will discuss family relationships and the role of communication in strengthening relationships. Students conduct a lunch time survey on the consumption of sugar sweetened beverages among a sample of the student body. Students devise a poster campaign displaying the results and promoting a healthy eating message.

Managing information and thinking - Students, using technology, will work collaboratively to plan a healthy, balanced menu for one day.

Managing myself - Students will work through a case study on purchasing a new piece of technology for personal use utilising their financial literacy skills in identifying their available resources and needs and wants.

Staying well - Students will work collaboratively to investigate the nutritional requirements of a particular stage of the lifecycle. Students will participate in peer evaluation of student dishes in a positive and constructive manner. Students constructively evaluate each other’s textile items.

Working with others - Students will advise on a sustainable everyday practice that can be applied in the home e.g. preventing food waste.

Strands

Strand 1: Food, Health and Culinary Skills

This strand focuses on developing students’ food, health and culinary skills. Students are enabled to develop a healthy, sustainable attitude and positive relationship with food through practical experiential learning. They apply their understanding of nutrition, diet and health principles in order to adopt a healthy lifestyle and make informed decisions that impact the health and wellbeing of themselves as individuals as well as within their families. The application of practical food and health literacy skills is integral to this strand and includes menu planning; shopping; cooking; health and safety food skills; portion control; reading food labels; dietary analysis; costing; sensory analysis; food waste.

Strand 2: Responsible Family Living

This strand facilitates students to explore, from a systems perspective, responsible family living. Students develop an understanding of the different forms and role of families as the core social unit. They develop an understanding of the role of the family in the development of the child in a safe and nurturing environment. Students develop lifeskills to enable them to manage resources responsibly and sustainably in the home, family and community. They are facilitated to become discerning, competent consumers who are able to apply effective decision-making skills in everyday contexts in the home and community. Enabling students to become responsible and have a caring attitude towards other individuals, family members, society and the environment is integral to this strand.

Strand 3: Textiles and Craft

This strand focuses on developing students’ textile skills, knowledge and creativity. Practical textile and craft skills are integral to this strand and include hand and machine sewing skills, and fabric texturing and embellishment techniques. Students are enabled to make sustainable decisions as consumers in the choice and maintenance of clothing and textile. Students will apply the design brief process in designing and making a textile item for an individual or the home.

Elements

Element 1: Individual and Family Empowerment

Across the strands, the learning outcomes in this element focus on a systems approach to individual and family empowerment. Students develop practical lifeskills that can be adapted to address practical, real world, perennial problems or concerns in everyday contexts in the home, family and society. They are facilitated to develop as critical, creative thinkers and problem solvers able to make informed decisions to achieve optimal, healthy and sustainable living for individuals, households, families and society.

Element 2: Health and Wellbeing

This element focuses on developing students’ knowledge, skills and understanding to make informed decisions that positively impact on their health and wellbeing of themselves as individuals as well as within their families. Across each of the three strands students are facilitated, using a systems approach, to address new and emergent practical concerns that can impact on the wellbeing of individuals, families and society.

Element 3: Sustainable and Responsible Living

Across the strands, the learning outcomes in this element facilitate students to develop as future-oriented thinkers and environmentally-conscious citizens, committed to a sustainable and responsible way of life. Developing students’ self-efficacy, critical reflection and discernment in the choice and use of resources in the home; in technological change; in environmental issues and the impact of these on resource management in the home and in personal consumption for everyday living underpin the learning outcomes in this element across each of the three strands.

Element 4: Consumer Competence

This element focuses on developing students who have the knowledge, skills and understanding to make informed and discerning consumer choices that affect individuals, families and households in contemporary society. Students develop the essential lifeskills to become active, adaptable, consumer literate citizens able to apply effective decision making skills in everyday contexts.

Leaving Certificate

Leaving Certificate Home Economics Scientific and Social provides students with the knowledge, understanding, skills and attitudes necessary for managing their own lives, for family resource management, for higher and further education, and for the world of work.

The learning experiences in this subject develops flexibility and adaptability in students, in order to prepare them for a consumer-oriented society and provide a learning foundation for a wide range of career paths including, and not limited to; food, nutrition and dietetics, business, law, science, textiles, design, sociology and tourism.

The syllabus is assessed at Higher and Ordinary levels.

Subject Content Overview

Core Areas

Food Studies (45%)

• Food Science and Nutrition
• Diet and Health
• Preparation and Processing of Food

Resource Management and Consumer Studies (25%)

• Family Resource Management
• Consumer Studies

Social Studies (10%)

• The Family in Society

Elective (20%)

Students opt for one Elective area only.

Home Design and Management

• Housing and provision of Houses
• Interior Design
• Energy Efficiency in the House
• Insulation
• Ventilation

Textiles, Fashion and Design

(Those choosing the Textiles, Fashion and Design elective must produce a garment which will be graded for overall assessment worth 10%)

• Current Fashion Trends
• Textile Science
• Evaluation of Garment Design
• Textile Industry

Social Studies

• The Family and Social Change
• Education
• Work
• Reconciling Work and Family
• Leisure
• Unemployment
• Poverty
• Government response to Social Problems

Assessment

The written exam paper accounts for 80%* of the total marks (*or 70% if Elective 2 is chosen). It is structured into three sections:

Section A
Short questions – based on core Area 1: Food Studies, and Core Area 2: Resource Management and Consumer Studies

Section B
Long questions – students complete one compulsory long question based on Core Area 1: Food Studies. Student choose two of four remaining long questions (based on a range of all three Core areas)

Section C
Elective – students choose one long question from the Elective of choice studied.

The practical journal coursework assignments account for the remaining 20% of the total marks. These include the completion of four Food Studies assignment briefs issued by the SEC, and are submitted to the SEC in early November of Leaving Certificate year. The majority of this work is completed by the students and overseen by the class teacher in 5th year.