Skills for Life: Food Planning and Preparation
Food planning and preparation is a Pearson Skills for Life unit in which learners plan and prepare a meal, from a simple meal with different types of food at Entry 1 to a costed, balanced and sustainable two-course meal for specific dietary needs at Level 2, working safely and hygienically. It is one 20 hour unit that learners combine with others into a Pearson Skills for Life Award, Certificate or Diploma, from Entry 1 to Level 2, internally assessed and graded Pass or Fail. Digital demand is low: no criterion needs a digital tool. Digital work sits in finding recipes online, costing meals on supermarket websites, and acknowledging sources and AI.
- Awarding body
- Pearson
- Level
- Entry Level 1 to Level 2
- Guided learning hours
- 20
- First taught
- September 2027
- Amount of digital work
- Low
- Specification
- Open the specification
How this unit is assessed
- Entry Level (Entry 1, Entry 2, Entry 3): One assessment criterion at each of Entry 1, Entry 2 and Entry 3: plan and prepare a simple meal that includes different types of food, with a basic nutritious meal within a given budget at Entry 3. Evidence is from centre devised assignments (Pearson's Authorised Assignment Brief can be used or adapted), internally assessed by the centre and quality assured by Pearson standards verification. Graded Pass or Fail. 20 guided learning hours.
- Level 1 and Level 2: One assessment criterion at each of Level 1 and Level 2: plan and prepare a nutritious, balanced two-course meal within a given budget (Level 1), or plan, cost and prepare a nutritious, balanced and sustainable two-course meal that meets specific dietary needs (Level 2). Evidence is from centre devised assignments, internally assessed by the centre and quality assured by Pearson standards verification. Graded Pass or Fail. 20 guided learning hours.
Skills that use Health and well-being
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Costing a meal using supermarket websites
Learners keep their meal within a given budget at Entry 3 and Level 1 and cost it at Level 2, and Annexe C suggests costing on supermarket websites, where learners can compare prices and record them in a table. Costing is required by the criteria, but doing it online or in a spreadsheet is suggested only.
DCF: Data and information literacy, Health and well-being
Getting pupils ready
- Year 7
- Pupils look up the price of five ingredients for a sandwich on a supermarket website and add them up in a table.
- Year 8
- Pupils enter ingredient prices for a recipe into a spreadsheet and use a SUM formula to find the total cost and the cost per portion.
- Year 9
- Pupils cost a two-course meal from two supermarket websites in a spreadsheet, compare own brand and branded items, and adjust the menu to fit a £10 budget.
Show the specification wording and the DCF statements
Where it is in the specification: Unit SfL 13, Assessment criteria, Entry 3 to Level 2, page 64; Essential information for assessment decisions, Level 2, page 66; Annexe C, page 162
“Plan, cost, and prepare a nutritious, balanced, and sustainable two-course meal that meets specific dietary needs.”
Progression step 3
I can construct, refine and interrogate data sets within tables, charts, spreadsheets and databases to test or support an investigation.
I can use a range of spreadsheet formulae, e.g. + - / x, sum, average, max, min.
Progression step 4
I can perform analysis on simple data sets including grouping data as appropriate.
I can make informed choices while making online choices, including making in-app purchases and clicking on adverts.
Good to know
- The unit is Unit SfL 13 with "20" guided learning hours in the unit summary (Section 3, page 5).
- A Pearson unit is achieved at one level only: "Learners can only achieve each unit once, at a single level" (Rules of Combination, page 6).
- The teaching content is not in the specification: "This can be found in the Teaching and Learning Support document for this unit" (Unit content, page 65).
- There is no fixed evidence format: "For this unit there are no mandatory evidence requirements and centres can select the type of evidence" (Essential information for assessment decisions, page 65), so practical cooking will need observation records or other evidence, since "achievement cannot be inferred from performance" (Section 4, page 9).
- Learners must cook: every criterion begins "Plan and prepare" (Assessment criteria, page 64), so the centre needs a food room and ingredients; the specification leaves resources to the centre: "The centre can decide any specific resource requirements" (page 67).
- AI must be acknowledged: "A learner will have committed malpractice if they use AI tools without acknowledging them" (Requirements relating to permitted/prohibited resources, page 67).
- Annexe C lists the digital links as "Online recipes, costing via supermarket sites" (page 162), but neither is an assessment criterion.
- Annexe E moves straight from SfL 5 to SfL 18 (page 172), so this unit has no Annexe E evidence row despite the unit text pointing to it (page 67).
Links with other qualifications
The unit links with WJEC GCSE Food and Nutrition, the WJEC VCSE in Hospitality and Catering and the WJEC Foundation in Hospitality and Catering, which all cover planning, costing and cooking dishes safely to meet dietary needs in more depth; the Pearson 'What matters' mapping is to Health and Well-being (page 67), which also links it to WJEC GCSE Physical Education and Health. Compared with the WJEC Food planning and preparation unit, also 20 hours, Pearson sets one criterion per level built around a single planned and cooked meal, two courses at Level 1 and 2, while WJEC uses four learning outcomes including separate ones on nutrition and on food storage and hygiene. Neither needs a digital tool in its criteria. The WJEC Skills Suite units Financial literacy and Healthy lifestyle share the budgeting and healthy eating work.
Source: Pearson Entry Level 1 to Level 2 Skills for Life Award, Certificate and Diploma Qualifications specification, Issue 1, August 2026, Unit SfL 13: Food planning and preparation.