Bedford schools call for better teaching of healthy eating and cooking

Food etc recently asked headteachers and family support workers from primary schools in Bedford for their views on teaching about healthy eating and cooking meals.

Their survey produced interesting results including:

• 85% of respondents do not think the national curriculum currently teaches basic cooking skills
• Over three-quarters of respondents do not think it teaches children how to make better food choices for their health and budget
• Almost one in 4 think that no subjects cover nutrition and healthier eating adequately
• Almost 70% believe that healthy eating and cooking skills should be a standalone subject in all years

Food etc, which empowers people to make better food choices by teaching them to cook cheap and healthy meals together, also asked the schools whether they had any suggestions they would propose to the team tasked by Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson to review the national curriculum around healthier eating and what this should look like. Feedback included:

“The reason that food is not taught in primary schools is mainly a funding issue.  Teachers are expected to fund the ingredients for recipes, often in schools with no real facilities to enable effective food tech lessons.  There is food in every year’s D&T, but it is rarely taught well because we can’t fund it appropriately.”

“Whilst I have indicated in my answers that the primary curriculum does cover healthy eating (actually across a number of subjects) I don’t really think it provides enough time to embed actual cooking skills, certainly until taken as an option at GCSE.”

“The primary curriculum is so ridiculously jam packed with content, that we can’t manage to cook regularly, to repeat and revisit skills, and to embed them in the way, for example, that we make children repeat their times tables day in day out! And yet they will need to use these cooking skills daily – possibly more often than their times tables, if we are honest…”

“A significant issue for us is that pupils can tell you what a healthy meal is, and how to ensure a healthy balanced meal, but the reality of their lives means they don’t often get to ‘live’ their learning. That is why the work Food etc does with parents and children together is so powerful. That, however, is not a solution that the curriculum can currently provide.”

“I think my message to the DfE as they revisit what is essential in the school curriculum for the next 10 years, would be please look at the children’s skills for life. If we concentrate on something like cooking skills for a good ten years, you can make a generational change in attitudes and skills, save money on health and then maybe revisit the curriculum in time and give a focus elsewhere, knowing you have embedded skills that will move back into family life.”

“DT has too many skills which have to be covered and the focus on food preparation can be limited, this is often due to resourcing the cooking sessions, areas to cook and providing time in the curriculum for small groups to go out at a time, while trying not to miss out on other learning.  This can often mean short sessions, where the end-product is the focus rather than the work around it – budgeting, shopping, alternative ingredients, skills, making the product stretch for a family, how to cook meals as opposed to a cake, biscuit or pancake. This skill is lost as children report eating out (take aways) as many as 3 to 4 times a week.  Children cannot use a knife and fork as much of the food at home is ‘finger food’. Parents lack the knowledge and this means the children are not getting this learning, at home, so it will fall to the schools to fill this gap. But something has to give! We need to prioritise the skills and knowledge for this day and age – time in the curriculum needs to be freed to provide life skills, which are rapidly disappearing.”

Food etc founder and director Julie Clay said: “Whatever young people go on to do with their lives they need to be able to feed themselves in a way that sustains them healthily within the budget they have. Our aim is to help address this issue albeit in a small way in Bedford. If it was something that was given more focus in schools it could have a fundamental effect on health and wellbeing which in turn would benefit the NHS and the economy. Added to that they would discover the joy that comes from cooking and eating together too.”