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Stoke Prior First School
Bromsgrove
Worcestershire
B60 4ND
Tel: 01527 832520
Email: spfs@rmplc.co.uk
126 pupils aged 5-9 years.
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How Stoke Prior changed it’s catering services
Stoke Prior First School does not supply school meals, so the school acted to promote healthy lunchboxes over a four week period. Improvements have been sustained over a period of 3 years with lots of follow up activities. This promotion involved various initiatives to improve children’s understanding of a healthy lunchbox and the need for water. Parents, teachers and pupils were involved.
The school has a School Council, which consists of two members (a boy and a girl) from each of the five year groups (all of whom can be identified by a wearing a badge), the head teacher, a teaching assistant and a lunchtime supervisor.
During these monthly meetings a variety of topics are discussed that are brought up during class discussions. The school council is in the initial stages of development, but have discussed a variety of subjects, including the setting up of a buddy system during break time.
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Improvements to the catering service
4 week programme of events to promote healthy lunchboxes:
- Anonymous survey to discover the content of school lunchboxes – children then used maths and IT lessons to analyse these results.
- Gourmet food testing for pupils and teachers sponsored by a local supermarket, who also supplied two prizes for two competitions.
- Children had to design a healthy lunchbox.
- Parents had to devise unusual healthy sandwich fillings.
- Healthy picnic day on the school field.
- Newsletters and information leaflets were produced to inform parents of the progress.
- Homework on healthy shopping lists.
- Class visits to supermarkets.
- Local press and radio were used to cover these events.
- A Water promoting initiative was also launched to encourage water consumption:
- Free water bottles were issued to all children as part of the school uniform, and children were given star charts to encourage children to fill the bottles daily with water.
- Poster Competition for National Drink Water Day.
- Visit from Severn Trent Water Authority, who talked about ‘water from heaven to home.’
- A football coach visited the school to reinforce the importance of water in sports.
- A Pakistani lady visited, recalling how, as a child, she would walk for miles to get water.
- The Blue Peter Well Appeal.
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Follow up initiatives include:
- Healthy sandwich workshops: this was led by Warburtons for Year 3 pupils, and also provided bread for the rest of the school, fillings were provided by a local supermarket. This enabled the children to learn about healthy sandwiches. The children were allowed to take home a healthy sandwich along with a bag full of bread from Warburtons.
- Fruit Fridays: this was set up before the National School Fruit Scheme was implemented, and it encouraged KS 2 pupils to bring a piece of fruit into school on a Friday as they would not be included in the scheme. This has gradually led to fruit being brought in every day and at break times. The pupils have now started bringing in less crisps and other snacks to the point where the school no longer qualifies for Walkers book tokens as they did not have enough coupons.
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Interactive ideas to educate children about healthy eating. Here are some examples of the good work that took place at Stoke Prior School:
- Year 4 made yogurt using natural flavours, the class then discussed low fat, low sugar options, and also looked at good bacteria. The children taste tested these to discover their preferences.
- Year 3 made and tasted breads from around the world and designed one sweet and one savoury bread. A lunch box survey was also carried out.
- Year 2 explored fruit and vegetables by drawings, discussions and taste sessions. They also designed fruit and vegetable faces.
- Year 1 made lemon tea biscuits. They were also given the opportunity to taste test exotic fruits, and compare low fat with normal fat crisps and yogurts.
- Year R made sugar free jellies, and taste tested crisps to compare low fat verses normal fat varieties.
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Where next?
Pass the knowledge on by working with 22 other schools in the area to improve the quality of their children’s daily nutrient intake.
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Measuring success:
- A follow up survey on school lunchboxes revealed that positive, significant outcomes had been achieved:
- Increased consumption of wholemeal bread, fruit, salad and water.
- Reduced consumption of crisps and chocolate bars.
- In general children are having healthier options in their lunchboxes
- More fruit is consumed at break times, which has reduced litter and fruit waste is used as compost.
- Due to the success of the ‘Walking Bus’ scheme, where children walk to school in a supervised manor, and children are ‘picked up’ at various ‘stops’ on the way, money has been granted that will be spent on a secure bike shed for the children.
- There is currently huge awareness of healthy eating within the school.
- The school are doing spot-checks on lunchboxes and in September 2004 they held a food fortnight.
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