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

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 5–6 years and another for teachers of children aged 10–11 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.
Source: Nutrition Bulletin - Category: Nutrition Authors: Tags: News and Views Source Type: research