Ready Steady Cook! Developing Exam Skills

I have been tweeting about this amazing activity and due to a number of people asking me about it I decided it was time for a blog.

Ready Steady Cook was an activity that was ‘showcased’ by Mark Mitchell at the recent tutor2u CPD conference, ‘(Probably) the Best Business Lessons Ever’. Mark therefore deserves all the plaudits, throwing of flowers etc for this activity that has become a staple of my teaching….

For those unfamiliar with the programme, Ready Steady Cook involves contestants providing chefs with a bag of ingedients. The chefs must then work against the clock to cook a meal using the given ingredients.

Ready Steady Cook uses the same format. Students are given a ‘bag’ of words and they need to construct an answer using the ‘ingredients’.

So, for a recent Year 10 lesson. I put the following question on the IWB. Explain the benefits to Business X of providing good customer service.

The students were then given the following ‘ingredients’. Customer service, because, therefore, competitition, therefore, reputation, sales, profit, because, differentiation.

This really stretched the students as they needed to use all of the above words to construct an answer. I also differentiate this activity by giving the more able students far more ingredients (sometimes up to 30) and for the less able fewer words and then asking them to use a minimum of say, 5 words.

Another nice touch is to play the ready steady cook music as the students are working.

This activity also works very well for A2. For AQA BUSS4 I am using ready steady cook to develop students their paragraph writing skills, giving them a benefit or limitation of a topic and then a bag of ingredients to work with.

Give this a go, it will be worth it.

Many thanks Mark…....

here is the Ready Steady Cook Theme music to get you on the way…

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Evaluation - Making a ‘judge’ment [1 May 2012]
Developing Exam Skills: AQA GCSE Business: Kingfisher Caravan Parks Ltd [1 May 2012]
Support for Teachers Delivering AQA GCSE Business Studies: The 9 Mark Question [30 Apr 2012]
Developing Exam Skills: AQA GCSE Business Studies: Definitions and Accessing the Higher Marks [30 Apr 2012]
Developing Exam Skills: AQA GCSE Business Studies: Application [30 Apr 2012]
Developing Exam Skills: BUSS2: Lessons Learnt from January [29 Apr 2012]
GCSE (AQA) Business Studies: Developing Exam Skills: The 9 mark question [24 Apr 2012]
BUSS4: The Seven Point Scale for Perfect Paragraphs [22 Apr 2012]
Developing Exam Skills: Analysis: The Snoozatron [22 Apr 2012]
Effective evaluation for A2 business: the “halo effect” [21 Apr 2012]
Developing Exam Skills: It depends on how you use “it depends” [20 Apr 2012]
Developing Exam Skills: Answer what you are asked! [20 Apr 2012]
When we went on Tour: Developing Exam Skills: Analysis [16 Apr 2012]
BUSS4 Bellwork - The School Merger [1 Mar 2012]
Our Enterprise Challenge (with some exam skills for good measure!) [25 Jan 2012]
Developing Exam Skills - BUSS3 [8 Nov 2011]
Whats in a name? A puntastic way to start the new school year [5 Sep 2011]
Evaluation in business essays?  Its just like going on a date… [22 Aug 2011]
Starter Activity: What Why Depends - Developing Thinking Skills [23 Feb 2011]
Think Pair Share [21 Nov 2010]
Starter Activity - I’m the Question [28 Oct 2010]
Starter & Revision Activity - Consider All Possibilities (C.A.P) [28 Oct 2010]
Whats in a name? A puntastic way to start the new school year [28 Aug 2010]
Starter Activity - AQA GCSE Unit 2, Growing as a Business [27 Jul 2010]
Developing Exam Skills - POMFEO [19 Jun 2010]
Starter Activity - Thinking Skills Bingo [5 Mar 2009]

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