We all know that a well-balanced diet is good for our heart, body and mind as well as helping to maintain a healthy weight. Educating children about the effect food has on our bodies allows them to make informed choices and take more responsibility for their health.

Resources available online

Better Health, formally known as Change4life, is a trusted NHS resource where user friendly food and nutritional information can be found, with helpful tools to teach children and families about eating well, sugar intake and tasty food swaps they can make.

Better Health resources also include:

  • healthy lunch boxes hints and tips, helping parents make healthier choices for their child's packed lunch.
  • the sugar calculator which helps children measure their own sugar intake and suggestions on food swaps.
  • home cooking recipes, from using seasonal vegetables when cooking on a budget to creating family favourite fake away meals.

The Better Health School Zone is where you as a teacher can create an account which will allow you to download Better Health campaign materials to promote healthy eating, physical activity and dental care.

Food a fact of life is a free online resource to help teachers educate young people about cooking, healthy eating and where food comes from, for all ages as well as policy development support to help you achieve your DoE Healthy School Rating. They also have a bank of free online training and CPD for teaching staff to increase their confidence and knowledge in delivering lessons on nutrition in line with the national curriculum and also running practical food lessons. There are also some online webinars scheduled to offer practical based training for teaching staff.

The Food for Life School Awards is a way for your school to demonstrate the work you do in providing healthy meals, food education and growing programmes. The programme supports schools to improve health and wellbeing, encourage pupils to take part in activities and enable children to feel empowered to make their own health choices.

Get Set to Eat Fresh is part of the Get Set family of education programmes. Get Set to Eat Fresh, brought to life through Aldi, Team GB and ParalympicsGB, is a free nationwide education programme to help all young people aged 5–14 develop their love and curiosity about healthy, sustainable food and the knowledge and skills they need to cook nutritious, low-cost meals.

Better families healthy steps is an 8 week email plan focused on specific advice for each family. The advice is tailored based on the answers provided to a short questionnaire. It is a useful and trusted resource that parents and carers can be signposted to receive simple advice and tips straight to them.

Learn Telford’s Family Learning team offer a wide range of courses, providing skills and knowledge relating to health and wellbeing.

These courses are aimed at families with low economic and education levels, working with parents/carers and children in a calm and learning-friendly environment.

As well as their listed courses, Learn Telford are able to work with schools to develop bespoke courses that meet the needs of their children and families relating to food, cooking, physical activity and education.

Following on from the success of the family cooking sessions as part of our EatWell programme, we wanted to share a fantastic resource with you. The EatWell team have created some free cook along videos with a wide variety of recipes for breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks. This resource can be used to support your DT curriculum, after school cooking clubs or as a resource to support parents to cook at home with their children.

The NHS Food Scanner app helps you find healthier swaps whilst at the shops, just by scanning the barcode. This tool can be a useful resources when teaching the Eatwell guide, traffic labels on food packaging or for sugar awareness to bring the content of the lesson to life. It can also be a great resource to signpost families to, to support them at home and when putting together lunchboxes.

The Phunky Foods mission is to improve the dietary and physical activity habits of young children (aged 2 - 11 years) across the UK by helping to create supportive learning environments for health in early years settings and primary schools. Rapid increases in the prevalence of childhood obesity means that we must help empower children, alongside their families and communities, to take control over their wellbeing to enable them to live longer, healthier and more fulfilled lives.

The Phunky Foods Programme aims to help early years settings and primary schools to deliver a whole-school approach to healthy lifestyles and to engage with all pupils, and their families, in promoting tangible health behaviour changes in a fun, lively and positive manner.

Understanding the School Food Standards is a simple way of ensuring children are eating a balanced diet during the school day, from the food provided during your wrap around provision to school lunches. It is also important to be aware that food high in fats, sugar and salt should not be served across the school day, which includes the use of these foods in class based learning. To understand the full standards, head teachers check list or to create a culture of healthy eating: Visit the GOV.UK website to access "School food standards: resources for schools".

New school food standards were introduced in January 2015 and have been mandatory in all maintained schools, new academies and free schools since. Governors are responsible for ensuring these standards are being met.

Below you will find some resources we have created to help support your school to meet the School Food Standards across the whole school day. These include some checklists to help you audit your current provision and top tips posters for food ideas that comply with the standards for all potential meals:

We have also recorded our webinar for you to watch to hear on overview of the standards, the national pilot that Telford & Wrekin was selected to be a part of and the local support on offer