Learning with Experts
The River Cottage Cooking Diploma: Next Level
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You can choose to buy as a gift during checkout. Simply check the gift option and personalise the gift card, then complete your order.
Want to buy for a business or group?
You can buy this course through your business or organisation for individuals and groups up to 20. To find out more contact us
Course overview
River Cottage’s Next Level Cooking Diploma expands your culinary horizons and takes your kitchen skills to new heights. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and the River Cottage team share their incredible knowledge and passion to boost your confidence and ability in baking, charcuterie, fish and veg skills, pasta making, wood-fired cookery, preserves, fermentation and much more besides.
This 12 course, 48 lesson Next Level diploma is a complete cookery course aimed at those who already have reasonable kitchen confidence or have completed some or all of the courses in the original River Cottage Cooking Diploma.
You’ll explore and acquire an amazing range of skills, recipes and knowledge, all grounded in the River Cottage core principles of ethical, seasonal and local sourcing, and cooking with optimal health in mind.
Hugh introduces all the courses and tutors and his own Next Level Much More Veg course is aimed at helping you create amazing plant based dishes worthy of formal entertaining and professional menus.
This is the level of aspiration for most of the courses, along with a few that will give you a thorough grounding in subjects not covered in the original diploma, for example the basics of making cheese at home, learning a range of fantastic home-made paste recipes, and optimising your gut health through embracing variety in your sourcing and cooking.
River Cottage’s chef-tutors are nationally recognised experts in their fields, and include award winning writer and outdoor cookery expert Gill Meller, best-selling fermentation author Rachel de Thample, long-standing River Cottage bread and baking guru Andy Tyrell, and of course River Cottages Executive Head chef and Lead Tutor, Gelf Alderson.
As well as teaching his Next Level Much More Veg course, Hugh has teamed up with Gelf to create a ground-breaking Ethical Meat Course, expounding River Cottage’s ethical and sustainable meat sourcing policy and demonstrating “nose to tail” recipes that show ultimate respect for this most precious ingredient.
Each River Cottage course in the diploma can be bought separately, or you can enrol for the full 12 courses to complete the River Cottage next level Diploma.
You will be issued a Certificate of Completion by Learning with Experts and River Cottage on finishing the 12 courses.
Independent Cookery Schools Association approvedThis course has been approved by the Independent Cookery Schools Association (ICSA), recognising the highest standards of training.
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Choose how you want to learn
Expert-level
Develop your learning further with marked assignments and personal tuition:
- Start the course whenever you like
- Tutor access for personalised assignment feedback & coaching
- Certificate of completion and CPD learning hours
- Online classroom with up to 20 classmates
- Lessons with expert videos & notes
- Group chat & direct message with tutor & classmates
- Lifetime access to videos, notes & classroom
Peer-level
Get the most from shared knowledge and community study:
- Start course whenever you like
- Practise what you learn with your peers
- Online classroom with up to 20 classmates
- 4 lessons with expert videos & notes
- 4 course assignments
- Group chat & direct message classmates
- Lifetime access to videos, notes & classroom
Why choose Learning with Experts?
Frequently asked questions
What’s the difference between PEER and EXPERT options?
At Peer and Expert level, you get access to the same core content and features:
- Video lesson tutorials led by your expert tutor
- Downloadable lesson notes
- Option to practise what you learn with lesson assignments
- Group learning within an online interactive classroom of up to 20 classmates
- Lifetime access to videos, notes and classroom
If you choose Expert level, you get all of the above plus the following:
- Personalised assignment feedback and coaching from your expert tutor
- Opportunity to interact with your expert tutor through a private messaging system
- Certificate of completion.
What is an online classroom?
Our online classroom has been developed to allow you to learn from our experts in a sociable environment alongside up to 20 other students. After each video tutorial led by your expert, you will be encouraged to practice what you have learned with optional assignments - these can be seen by the other students in your class, who are free to share their own thoughts and questions with you.
You will be encouraged to take part in an ongoing class discussion where you can discuss ideas, post images or work, and comment on each other’s assignments. It’s a great way to learn from other like-minded people who share your passion from all over the world.
This means not only do you benefit from people who are outstanding in their field, but also from a close-knit group of like-minded people whom you can learn alongside. Group learning has shown to greatly improve not just the experience of studying, but also how well you retain the knowledge, and we have built our classroom experience around this fact.
When can I start my course and how long will it take?
You can start your course any time within 12 months after receipt of your purchase confirmation email. Once you start, you’ll have lifetime access — meaning you can revisit the lesson videos and notes whenever you want.
Our courses are designed so that you can study at your own pace, some prefer to binge learn while others like to spread their studying over a longer period of time - it’s completely up to you. To give you a rough time frame, each lesson video is approximately 30-40 minutes long, and we recommend that you spend around an hour on each assignment.
How often can I speak with the Expert?
If you opt for the Expert version of your course, the time you have to interact with your tutor is limited to course length. You will have one week per lesson to chat to your tutor and to have your assignments marked, and during this period you can ask them as many questions as you would like.
To find out the length of each course, head to the product page and look at the Course outline to see how many lessons it contains. e.g. a four lesson course assumes that you will have completed the assignments within four weeks.
Your tutor interaction period will start as soon as you enter the classroom. If you find that you are struggling to complete the assignments in the allocated time or you wish to put this function on hold, just get in contact with one of the team via the support button and we will help you out.
Support and full FAQs
If you need any help with a course, be it one you’ve started already, or one you are looking to purchase, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our Support email address, or view the full FAQ’s here.
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