Top Food Student Goes Back To School

An eighteen year old pupil from Eastwood High School, East Renfrewshire has been awarded the prestigious Top Home Economics Student in Scotland prize by Quality Meat Scotland, the red meat industry promotion body.

Amanda Gillooly was the highest scoring pupil in the Scottish Qualifications Authority examination 2008 for Home Economics, Health & Food technology sat by almost 800 students. Her achievement is all the more impressive as Amanda suffers from a rare muscle weakness condition.

At a special ceremony at Eastwood High School, Newton Mearns Amanda received a cash prize to the value of £250 from Glen, aka Chris Capaldi, the face of the Scotch Beef marketing campaign and her school accepted a £250 meat voucher to be used during home economics classes.

QMS Health and Education Coordinator Jennifer Robertson said: “We are delighted to continue our support for scholarship excellence in the area of Home Economics, Health and Food Technology.

“QMS is about promoting the benefits of eating red meat as part of a healthy, balanced diet and we feel it’s important to back initiatives such as this to help give the next generation the skills to make use of Scotland’s excellent produce.

“We continually hear reports that more and more kids are leaving home with little idea of how to cook which highlights the importance of encouraging study amongst Scotland’s young people in the area of food and nutrition.

“Amanda has overcome considerable challenges to achieve excellent academic results in all of her subjects and she is an inspiration to us all.”

Eastwood High School head teacher Stuart Maxwell said: “We’re all tremendously proud of Amanda. She thoroughly deserves this award which reflects her hard work and enthusiasm and the superb support and encouragement she received from our home economics staff, and, of course, from her parents.”

In addition to the annual award for Top Home Economics Student, QMS offers schools free healthy cooking demonstrations for pupils and also coordinates a meat voucher system to help schools buy fresh meat locally for use in home economics classes.