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Development and evaluation of food and nutrition teaching kits for teachers of primary schoolchildren

Author: Schneider, E., Theobald, C.

Schneider, E., and C. Theobald. “Development and Evaluation of Food and Nutrition Teaching Kits for Teachers of Primary Schoolchildren.” Nutrition Bulletin, vol. 41, no. 1, Mar. 2016, pp. 55–66. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/nbu.12189.

E. Schneider and C. Theobald

British Nutrition Foundation, London, UK

Abstract

Food and nutrition education is a compulsory part of the primary school curriculum across the UK, but primary school teachers report the need for further support to deliver food and nutrition lessons. Although the British Nutrition Foundation’s education website, Food a fact of life (FFL), contains a vast selection of resources for primary teachers, it was hypothesised that a prescribed ‘off the shelf’ package of resources may be more desirable for teachers and better support their requirements. This led to the creation of the FFL teaching kits. The Foundation developed two versions of the FFL teaching kit, one aimed at teachers of children aged 56 years and another for teachers of children aged 1011 years. Each kit contained 12 UK curricula linked lesson plans, posters, stickers and a CD- ROM with existing FFL website resources (e.g. interactive games, PowerPoint presentations, worksheets). Home activity booklets were also included in the kit to encourage parent/carer engagement with healthy eating topics. A pilot evaluation study was carried out to determine the acceptability and feasibility of the FFL teaching kits. Feedback from teachers using the kits was positive, and they taught a broader range of topics than teachers not offered the kits. These results, including suggestions for improvement, will inform future education resource development at the Foundation.

Keywords: education, healthy eating, primary, resource, school

Introduction

Much emphasis has been put on the importance of food education in recent years, predominantly as part of a national drive to improve child health. Obesity remains a major issue among British primary schoolchildren, with the latest National Child Mea- surement Programme reporting that 22% of Reception children (aged 45 years) and 33% of Year Six children (aged 1011 years) are either overweight or obese (HSCIC 2015).

Food education has an important role to play in developing practical food preparation and cooking skills in children and young people. A 2013 YouGov survey revealed that fewer than 40% of British chil- dren were able to cook five savoury dishes by the time they left school (Dimbleby & Vincent 2013) leaving them poorly equipped to feed themselves a healthy, varied diet as they move into adulthood and indepen- dent living. Research has shown that poorer cooking skills, less frequent preparation of home-cooked food and more frequent consumption of pre-prepared foods are associated with poorer dietary quality and over- weight and obesity (Adams et al. 2015). Practical food preparation and cooking activities form part of the curriculum in England, Scotland and Wales. Although specific references to practical cooking activities are not highlighted in the curriculum of Northern Ireland, there is opportunity to include these activities in the teaching of other subjects.

Learning about farming and where food comes from is also taught through the curriculum in the UK. There is widespread concern about the way children, young people and their families have become disassociated from the sources of their food (FACE 2015). Research conducted by the British Nutrition Foundation (BNF) with over 27 500 children revealed that around a third of primary schoolchildren (29%) thought that cheese comes from plants and nearly one in five (18%) believe that fish fingers come from chicken (BNF 2013).

Food education is compulsory in the UK primary school curriculum, yet the support offered to primary school teachers in teaching food and nutrition is cur- rently limited. There is a lack of food specialists in the primary school setting, with few initial teacher train- ing routes offering a primary school teaching course with a food teaching specialism. Food training as part of most primary initial teacher training courses is often minimal, with many primary trainee teachers in England receiving <6 hours training for Design and Technology as a whole (Design and Technology Asso- ciation 2015), with food technology likely to account for less than a third of this. This level of training may not adequately equip trainee teachers for teaching all aspects of food in the primary school setting. Histori- cally, there has been less importance attached to food in the curriculum, with primary schools judged on pupils’ performance in English and Mathematics, which account for at least 50% of teaching time (Design and Technology Association 2015). Under- standably, this can result in primary school teachers giving less priority to planning and teaching food and nutrition lessons.

Since 1991, the Foundation has delivered an educa- tion programme in schools, Food a fact of life (FFL), which has strived to support and encourage better food and nutrition education. The FFL website was developed by BNF in 2005, with the aim to provide free, up-to-date, concise information and resources to help primary school teachers deliver accu- rate messages about healthy eating and cooking, based around the UK healthy eating model at the time, The Balance of Good Health, which subsequently became the eatwell plate (Theobald & Rowcliffe 2010). Over

the last 10 years, the website has expanded and now provides resources for early years and secondary school teachers, as well as free nutritional analysis software and health and wellbeing interactive com- puter activities. Resources are age appropriate, UK curricula linked and support the Core competences for children and young people aged 516 years: A frame- work of skills and knowledge around food, diet and physical activity (BNF 2014). There are currently over 1000 resources available on the FFL website, includ- ing PowerPoint presentations, worksheets, teachers’ guides, lesson ideas, posters, food cards, recipes, webi- nar recordings and videos. The site continues to grow in popularity and in October 2015, the site recorded its highest monthly visitor numbers at 246 148 visits and 612 112 resources were downloaded.

Although FFL comprises a vast selection of teaching material, teachers may not have the time to search through the website for appropriate resources from which to then create lesson plans. The Workload Challenge Survey reported that 51% of primary school teacher respondents found the workload for weekly lesson planning a burden (Gibson et al. 2015) with some reporting that ‘off the shelf’ schemes of work, especially those providing detailed lesson plans and adaptable materials, can make a large difference to workload (Department for Education 2015). Previ- ous work by the Foundation has indicated that pack- aging healthy eating themed lesson plans with links to specific digital and hardcopy resources is popular with teachers. For example, Eat Like a Champ (ELAC), a healthy eating educational programme aimed at pri- mary schoolchildren aged 910 years, developed by Danone in collaboration with BNF, was accessed by 1000 primary school teachers across the UK in 2013 (Eat Like A Champ 2015). Without exception, all teachers in this group reported that they found the ELAC programme helpful and relevant (Danone 2014).

In early 2015, BNF embarked on a pilot evaluation study to test the acceptability and feasibility of FFL primary school website resources, packaged into a pre- scribed, ‘off the shelf’ teaching kit. This ‘off the shelf’ package comprised lesson plans, existing FFL resources and hardcopy materials to be used over a school term. It was designed to help primary school teachers reduce their lesson planning time and provide them with an engaging way to teach accurate, up-to- date food lessons. The content was selected to increase pupil knowledge of healthy eating (including physical activity), where food comes from (food and farming) and cooking, as well as improving pupil confidence with food preparation and cooking. The overarching aim of the teaching kit was to encourage children to consume a healthy diet, based on national healthy eat- ing guidelines.

In this evaluation study, the FFL teaching kit was compared with unpackaged pre-existing FFL website resources. The prediction was that teachers using the FFL teaching kits would deliver more food and nutri- tion lessons, covering a wider range of topics.

Development of the FFL teaching kits

The Foundation developed two variations of the FFL teaching kit, one aimed at teachers of children aged 56 years and another at teachers of children aged 1011 years. The kits were developed by a for- mer primary school teacher and a registered dietitian and reviewed by an external evaluator, a senior lec- turer in Education at the University of East London.

Lesson plans

The kits comprised 12 lesson plans for each age group and a teachers’ guide. An overview of the lesson plans is provided in Tables 1 and 2. No prescribed time was given for the lessons, allowing teachers flexibility to include the lessons in their teaching where possible. The lesson plans contained hyperlinks to pre-existing resources on the FFL website such as worksheets, PowerPoint presentations, activities (e.g. food cards) and interactive games, and suggested practical cooking activities, suitable for the primary classroom. The les- son plans and supporting website resources were also provided on a CD-ROM. The topics were aligned

Table 1 FFL teaching kit lesson overview for 56 year-old children

Food and nutrition teaching kits 57 with appropriate subjects in the curricula in England,

Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Home activity booklets

Home activity booklets, shown in Figure 1, were developed for each age group to supplement and rein- force classroom learning and to engage parents/carers in healthy eating and physical activity. The home activity booklets contain activities based around cur- rent healthy eating messages from the eatwell plate and Eight tips for healthy eating (PHE 2014).

Many of the pupil activities in the booklet aimed to increase pupils’ awareness of their own diets and physical activity levels (e.g. diary style activities) and to reinforce positive healthy eating messages. Activities and ideas aimed at parents/carers included: fruit and vegetable family tally chart to monitor whether mem- bers of the family were eating at least 5 A DAY, having a ‘breakfast week’ (make breakfast together, try new breakfasts and eat breakfast together as a family), planning a day’s meals and snacks based on the eatwell plate and doing some physical activity together as a family.

The home activity booklets were reviewed by teach- ers from the Foundation’s regional Education Working Groups and the external evaluator, with feedback being implemented in the final booklet. Each class receiving the FFL teaching kit was provided with 35 hardcopy full-colour booklets. The lesson plans sug- gested when to set homework tasks from the home activity booklets and provided prompts to the teachers to check that the homework had been completed and that the parent/carer had signed the relevant page.

Content
Reasons we need to eat and drink

The importance of eating and drinking regularly focus on breakfast Cook and make breakfast toast topping
What counts, how to include each day
Recognise and sort foods in to the eatwell plate groups

Plan a meal using the four main eatwell plate groups
Taste ingredients from the four main eatwell plate groups and describe them using

sensory vocabulary
Sort foods into their plant or animal origin
Explore farm to fork stages
Use basic food skills safely to prepare ingredients for a snack
Make a coleslaw-style salad using food skills safely
The importance of being more active and how to achieve 60 minutes a day

Lesson Focus

  1. 1 Healthy eating

  2. 2 Healthy eating

  3. 3 Cooking

  4. 4 Healthy eating

  5. 5 Healthy eating

  6. 6 Healthy eating

  7. 7 Healthy eating

  8. 8 Food and farming

  9. 9 Food and farming

  10. 10 Cooking

  11. 11 Cooking

  12. 12 Physical activity

Theme

Food and drink
Mealtimes (focus breakfast) Breakfast (toast)
5ADAY
The eatwell plate
Healthy meals
Tasting foods

Plant or animal Farm to fork Food skills
Perfect plant salad Get active

© 2016 British Nutrition Foundation Nutrition Bulletin, 41, 5566

58 E. Schneider and C. Theobald
Table 2 FFL teaching kit lesson overview for 1011 year-old children

Lesson Focus

  1. 1 Healthy eating

  2. 2 Healthy eating

  3. 3 Food and farming

  4. 4 Food and farming

  5. 5 Cooking

  6. 6 Healthy eating

  7. 7 Healthy eating

  8. 8 Healthy eating

  9. 9 Healthy eating

  10. 10 Cooking

  11. 11 Food and farming

  12. 12 Healthy eating

Posters and stickers

Theme

The eatwell plate
Eating and drinking around the world Producing food
Seasonality
Food skills
Energy
Nutrients
Hydration
Food labels
Healthier cooking
Farm to fork
How to be healthy

DMU Timestamp: November 27, 2019 01:26





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