Putting food education on the school menu

Following the success of the award winning School Visitors programme from Warburtons, the nation’s biggest baker launches free Teaching Resources for primary schools, designed to help children learn about food in the face of a ‘dietary crisis’

Warburtons

It has been claimed that the nation will face severe social and economic issues if Britain fails to teach children about how to cook and eat properly.

The NHS spends over £6bn each year on diet-related illnesses and there is concern that the figure could rise significantly as a result of poor knowledge around healthy eating.

With growing levels of eating disorders and reports suggesting that more children than ever are failing to eat fruit and vegetables, there is a renewed focus on food education.

According to studies, early intervention is more successful in influencing diets into adulthood, and last year the teaching of cooking became compulsory for children up to age 14 in the English National Curriculum.

However, as it was introduced, research from Warburtons showed that more than half of teachers did not think they would have enough time to prepare for cooking in the classroom.

Children at Hollingwood Primary School get stuck in to their food education class

What are the Warburtons Teaching Resources?

The Teaching Resources are free, downloadable materials, compiled to support the teaching of healthy eating and cooking.

They offer a step-by-step guide for teachers when delivering food education lessons, and include worksheets, PowerPoint presentations, videos and posters.

Designed in accordance with the UK healthy eating model, The eatwell plate, the resources outline food lessons for sandwich making and bread baking, as well as information required on how to prepare a classroom, ingredients, equipment and pupils.

The British Nutrition Foundation (BNF) collaborated with Warburtons in the development of the materials, which were based on nine months of new research into who can be helped - and how.

FREE RESOURCES - Warburtons’ free Teaching resources can be downloaded at http://www.warburtons.co.uk/corporate/teaching-resources/

Why is Warburtons offering these resources?

For 20 years, Warburtons has been delivering workshops to primary schools as part of its award winning School Visitors programme to try and combat these issues.

The scheme boasts a full-time team of 20 School Visitors who delivered over 1,000 workshops to almost 30,000 children across more than 600 schools last year.

In response to the increasing demand for these visits and the incredibly positive feedback from teachers, Warburtons has provided a selection of the workshop resources online to enable even more schools to benefit from the content.

This latest initiative builds on Warburtons’ belief that a responsible family food business should make a positive contribution to families’ diets and nutritional education.

The School Visitors initiative is part of Warburtons’ national investment programme Families Matter, which supports the local communities in which Warburtons operates.

Brett Warburton, Executive Director at Warburtons:

“Our School Visitors Programme gives Warburtons a unique insight into food teaching. The new online Teaching Resources are designed to help children develop the right eating habits which will stay for them for years to come and provide the foundation for a healthy life.”

The Warburtons Teaching Resources

The new Teaching Resources include four sections:

What is healthy eating? Helping children understand about healthy eating with the UK healthy eating model – The eatwell plate

How can you cook in a primary school classroom? Finding out how to prepare your classroom, ingredients, equipment, pupils and yourself

Sandwich making project. Showing pupils how to prepare ingredients and use them to make their own healthy sandwich.

Bread making project. Teaching all about the ingredients in bread and how it is made as your class create their own bread rolls.

For more information about the Teaching Resources, or to book a visit from one of Warburtons’ School Visitor teams, please get in touch at teaching.resources@warburtons.co.uk