Kent CC Healthy Eating Fun Events
After winning a Food Standards Agency grant Sue Harvey of Kent County Council Trading Standards gives an update on the second phase of the Five a day Funday project now renamed 'Healthy Eating Fun Events'.
Aims and Objectives
1. To provide pupils with the knowledge to make healthier food choices
2. To raise awareness of the '5 A Day' fruit and vegetable campaign
3. To raise the profile of KSS and Kent Trading Standards within the community as 'health practitioners'
Partners
- Kent Trading Standards
- Kent Scientific Services
- Kent Healthy Schools
Methodology
An application for a Food Standards Agency Grant for Local Food Hygiene and Nutrition Initiatives was made jointly by Kent County Council Trading Standards (KTS) and Kent Scientific Services (KSS). The intention was to conduct further events based on our successful ‘Five a Day Fun Day’.
The original concept was reviewed and scope for improvements identified, in particular making the event sustainable by changing its location from the laboratory to the schools themselves. The name of the events were also re-named (Healthy Eating Fun Events) to convey the wider messages being delivered .
The new round of events supported by the grant were therefore re-designed.
- The events were re-named ‘Healthy Eating Fun Events’ in recognition that the key messages were not solely about 5 A Day.
- The events were held on site at primary schools.
- The primary target audience was children in Year Group 4; our secondary target was the family. By providing take-home packs with food literature aimed at adults, it was anticipated that the wider family would benefit from the information, aiding a change in selection and purchasing decisions. Using the children to drive home the change in the home was expected to be more successful than simply distributing literature to households.
- The initiative comprised four activities similar to the previous event except Activities 1 & 2 were modified to give greater emphasis to the science of healthy eating and food.
Activity 1 took place with all the children gathered together before breaking off into smaller groups for the other 3 activities. Conducting the other activities in smaller groups provided an environment to allow every child to participate and test understanding.
ACTIVITY 1 – Food safety and foreign bodies - an introductory slide show where the children are asked to play the part of ‘scientists’ and look at the slides to explain what they see and identify the problems.
ACTIVITY 2 – Food and Science – the children are shown through a test tube set up how much fat, salt and sugar are in a variety of typical lunchbox items. Each pupil then carries out a number of short experiments to see how much vitamin C is present in a range of soft drinks and juices.
ACTIVITY 3 - ‘Five a Day bingo’ - interactive game testing recognition of more common fruit and vegetables and promoting interest in fruits and vegetables associated with minority ethnic groups. The bingo was followed by a feel the fruit exercise where fruit had to be identified through touch alone. Overlaying these activities was the 5 A Day message.
ACTIVITY 4 - ‘Balance of Good Health’ - children identified which foods belonged to which food groups and how to select a balanced meal, both at school and within their wider food intake. They were able to discuss their likes and dislikes and why some foods should be eaten in moderation for a healthy balanced diet.
Promotion
The Healthy School Co-coordinators were asked to provide suitable candidates that would benefit from our involvement in achieving Healthy School status.
Resources
The FSA Grant enabled previously loaned resources to be purchased and additional facilities for the slide presentation. The major resource were staff which involved between 6 and 7 employees of KSS and KTS at each event.
Evaluation
A questionnaire of 8 questions and an opportunity to provide additional comments was sent to each school approximately 4 weeks after the event. The responses are summarised below
- All of the schools indicated that the event supported one or more of their curriculum activities. 50 % indicated that the event supported both PSHE and Science activities.
- 80% of the schools used the event to prompt other activities relating to their Healthy School status.
- All of the schools believed the style of the event to be both engaging and fun for the pupils.
- All of the schools indicated a very significant increase in knowledge of healthy eating among the pupils.
- 40% of the responses indicated that there had been a very significant increase in eating fruit or vegetables at break time or lunch. The remaining 60% indicated an increase.
- All of the schools indicated that there had been an increase towards a more balanced selection of foods for those having a school lunch (two schools indicated a very significant increase)
- 80% of the schools indicated that there had been an increase towards a more balanced selection of foods in lunchboxes brought from home (two schools indicated a very significant increase)
- 80% of the schools thought the children’s learning had had some impact on their parents/carers.
The comments on the day and from the questionnaire were positive
‘I thought the activities were very engaging.'
'There was a good variety and they acknowledged the different learning styles of the children’
‘Years 3 & 4 had a great time and have learnt a lot.’
Many of the schools requested whether other sessions could be held and several other schools contacted this service having heard about the events requesting inclusion of their school. One school specifically identified a need for similar parental education. The activities themselves tested understanding of individual pupils and allowed reinforcement of learning as necessary during the course of the event.
As with the Five a Day Fun Day a post-event competition to draw a healthy lunch box was used to take the learning beyond the day, giving the pupils an activity to reflect on their learning. A representative from the Healthy Schools team was asked to judge the competition and evaluate how well the healthy eating messages were reflected in the pictures. In general she felt the vast majority of entries indicated an understanding of the key messages of 5 A Day and a balanced diet. Some pupils included a lot of fruit and vegetables, more than could really be consumed at one meal time. This perhaps reflected their keenness to show the variety of fruit and vegetables that they were aware of and that it was a drawing competition.
Lessons Learned
There were some practical difficulties in communication with the schools. Trading standards provided a single point of contact to the schools and a contact name was sought for each school. A confirmatory letter was sent to each school outlining the facilities required for the duration of the event (essentially a suitable room such as an assembly hall).
To minimise time for set up on the day of the event all the equipment was delivered to the school the day before. This also enabled feedback to KSS and TS staff on parking, facilities and access to the premises. The numbers of pupils were less than anticipated. This was largely due to the low class numbers in the target age group. In some cases numbers were boosted by also including children younger than the target.
The maximum number of sessions we could provide was two, due to use of the assembly hall for other activities, critically preparation for serving school meals at the lunchtime period.
The small activity group sizes allow participation of each pupil and are felt to be manageable for staff who are not used to dealing with large groups of young children. The existing format of Activities 2 - 4 would not be suitable for a significantly larger audience.
Some of the activities did over-run on time. This was due usually to the enthusiasm and interest of the pupils being expressed in asking questions. There could be scope to extend the duration of activities but the actual concentration time of pupils would need to be considered as the attention span of some children was exhausted by the end of the planned activity time.
Future Developments
To achieve a greater audience it may be possible to hold future events at one school and invite others in the vicinity to attend. In this way we could run the sessions at maximum capacity and continue through to the afternoon. Ideally the school hosting would have a separate area for catering than the assembly hall.
This case study is an update of previous case study Five a day Funday
Contact Details
Contact Name: Sue Harvey
Job Title: Trading Standards Officer
Phone: 01622 221012
Email: susan.harvey@kent.gov.uk
Organisation: Kent County Council Trading Standards
Address: Kent County Council Trading Standards,
Invicta House,
Maidstone
ME14 1XX