Fruit and vegetables are the snack of choice at Hautes Capelles Primary School
Food at breaktime just got healthier at Hautes Capelles Primary, with pupils, staff and parents supporting a move to fruit and vegetables. A new snack policy came into effect at the beginning of the spring term, meaning that breaktime is now an opportunity for all pupils to eat one of their 5 a day.
“We’ve been working closely with the Health Improvement Commission who have supported us in making changes to benefit children’s health,” said Stephanie Exall, Teacher, and Eat Well Lead at Hautes Capelles. “We’ve been listening to our pupils to find out what is important to them when it comes to food at school. Children volunteered to establish the F.O.O.D team, which stands for Focus On Our Diet. The team meets regularly to have discussions about what would help them and their peers focus, learn and be healthy throughout the school day. They’ve been so enthusiastic, developing ideas and keeping both parents and pupils informed of the changes. They even ran an assembly at the start of term where they handed out fruit and veg to help kick start the new breaktime policy.”
Parents were invited to give their views around food at school. Over 96% of parents reported that they thought it was important for children to eat healthily during the school day, and 93% thought that school rules around food and drink can help support children to eat healthier.
“We wanted to bring everyone along on this journey, through engaging with pupils, staff and parents to find out what they wanted and how we could make this happen,” said Cat Tyrrell, Eat Well Project Support Officer at the Health Improvement Commission. “Our work here forms part of our wider support package for primary schools to help them build a ‘whole school approach’ to food and nutrition. We’ve also been working with GROW Ltd., who kindly agreed to build some hedge veg style boxes so that children across the school have easy access to a fruit or veg snack. The F.O.O.D Team did an incredible job of decorating these boxes to make them even more appealing.”
Since the new breaktime policy came into effect, parents have shown their support.
“I think it really helps them eat healthily,” said parent Dewi Clatworthy. “It’s just clear for everyone to have the same thing and then there’s no discussion.”
Parent Becky Lewis said: “It helps at home as well because they sway more towards the fruit bowl now than the snack cupboard.”
“It’s going to benefit the children as well as the confidence parents are going to have because they’re going to begin gravitating toward eating healthily,” said parent Chonya Mwambazi. “It has not been easy, but because of the benefit it brings we have been able to try to explain to our children that if they eat this then it makes you healthier and you will have energy.”
For more information about how the Eat Well team can help support your setting email cat.tyrrell@healthimprovement.gg