Publications
Partners
What started as a mom teaching her son hospitality and culinary skills blossomed into an academy for aspiring chefs who are on the autistic spectrum.
Cheryl Terblanche describes her academy, Spectrum Chefs, as an "accident" that's taught her a lot about those with special needs.
The academy, launched in 2017, is based in Claremont in Cape Town's southern suburbs.
Her son Shay Terblanche (31), who lectures at the academy with his mom, was often described as “disruptive" and "naughty” when he was at primary school.
After visiting several doctors and psychiatrists, Shay, was diagnosed at age 10 as being on the autism spectrum.
Cheryl (59) and her husband, Etienne (61), decided to focus on Shay's needs and wants.
Becoming a chef, Shay says, was a natural choice, as his mom was already in the catering business and his aunt ran a restaurant.
“I’ve always wanted to be a chef, there was no second option,” Shay says.
But it wasn't easy. Shay repeated Grades 1 and 4 and shortly after he started high school, Cheryl was told he wasn't coping with the curriculum.
Cheryl decided to homeschool him using an American programme. She did this for 18 months.
In 2008, when Cheryl was homeschooling Shay, "a parent asked me if I could teach her son, who has cerebral palsy, to become self-sufficient in the kitchen, and I couldn’t say no”, she recalls.
The request was the seed that eventually grew into Spectrum Chefs.
Although Cheryl has no formal teacher training she's proved to be more than capable and has been successfully running Spectrum Chefs since 2017.
Shay was 17 when he started working in the hospitality industry, without any formal qualifications.
The mom-and-son duo went on to teach cooking skills in the evenings at Bergvliet High School’s Adult Enrichment Programme, in Cape Town's southern suburbs.
Shay, without completing matric, went on to take cooking courses overseas.
In 2017 he joined his mother as a teacher at Spectrum Chefs, which started operating from her house but has since relocated to bigger premises.
The academy offers a curriculum that's been recognised by the Quality Council for Trades & Occupations, along with the Highfield International Programme, which gives students an accredited qualification "and a chance to enter the workplace with pride".
They pay special attention to each of their students, who are between three and 48 years old.
“We have 49 students, and 29 are on the autism spectrum,” Shay says.
READ MORE| Real Housewives of Gqeberha's Ashleigh Mather on being called a drunk and life with autistic kids
Prices vary for the academy courses, which include a one-year cook's course, a three-year chef's course and various cooking skills courses. They also offer annual Sector Education and Training Authority (Seta) bursaries for 12 students to qualify as cooks.
Cheryl's method of teaching is for her students to work without recipes as guides, and to work on their dishes until they perfect them.
Shay, meanwhile, prefers students to read through recipes with him, and watch him at work before trying it themselves.
One of their first students was Tomas Rogerson (28), who was also diagnosed as being on the spectrum when he was 10 years old.
“Tommy has been at our school for 10 years. He's mischievous and slow, but very observant and mostly non-verbal, but he can be very chatty at times,” Cheryl says.
Teaching people to cook has helped her learn more about those with special needs, Cheryl says, and they're hoping to open branches of their academy in other provinces, as they've received interest from people in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.
