Public Health England

Annual update on actions in The Plan

The Action:

Public Health England will promote policies, which improve children’s diets in schools

What’s worked well:

Public Health England (PHE) has worked with a range of partners over the last year, including the British Nutrition Foundation (BNF) and the Children’s Food Trust.

  • PHE supported the School Food Plan to launch the ‘what works well’ recipe hub which gives recipe ideas across the school day that meet the school food standards whilst also meeting the required nutrition criteria of the Government Buying Standards for Food and Catering Services (GBSF).
  • To support schools to implement the Government Buying Standards for Food and Catering services nutrition criteria, PHE has worked in collaboration with the Children’s Food Trust to produce guidance and a checklist tool for school caterers.
  • In February and March 2015, PHE supported the BNF to provide national curriculum teacher training events and seminars. This included in the summer the publication of a set of teaching resources based on the core Competence framework.
  • In November 2015, PHE in collaboration with BNF published knowledge and skills frameworks to support delivery of food teaching in primary and secondary schools. It is intended that these frameworks will be used to review and plan courses for trainee teachers, support teacher performance related development and support best practice.

Snippets of success:

PHE no background v2At the start of the year, Snack Swaps was launched in primary schools to support the Sugar Swaps consumer campaign. Providing simple recipes, the resources encouraged pupils to get cooking in the classroom, in line with the new design and technology curriculum. A box template enabled pupils to make a Snack Swap Box to take their healthier snack home in, thus encouraging parental engagement.

 

School ZoneIn September 2015 Change4Life launched phase 1 of the School Zone, an online resource for primary teachers providing curriculum linked materials and inspiration for teaching about healthy eating and being active. Cross curricular activities, whole school ideas and homework that encourages parental engagement help pupils to take their lessons outside the classroom. Teachers can subscribe to the School Zone newsletter to hear about new resources and campaigns.

What’s coming up:

PHE will support the School Food Plan at looking how the revised recommendations on sugar and fibre intakes can be reflected as part of a whole school approach to food and will continue to work to support what works well in school food