Sunday 16 December 2012

Promoting a School Culture of Healthy Eating

Part of my role this year has been to create a culture of healthy eating at my school. Along with students driving the campaign at school, I introduced our version of "Nude Food" called "Kiwi Kai" which is a lunch with no litter or waste, but also with healthy foods. Through many student led initiatives, assembly presentations and blogging it has become a proud talking point at lunch times. 

The 5+ A Day competition inspired me to reinforce healthy lunches. So I created a Master Chef competition, highly scaffolded by the teachers as participants, which was a draw card to engage the kids as judges, but with a big student finale. This was my planning and support resources for other staff to aid them in the preparation and and teaching links across the curriculum. Below is a learning activity / assessment matrix based on Multiple Intelligences and Blooms Taxonomy which allowed students to choose a range of self directed projects to complete.

Matrix for 5+ A Day & Master Chef


Some blog posts about our competition:
School Blog:
1. http://hingaiapeninsulaschool.blogspot.co.nz/2012/10/term-4-week-3-kiwi-kai.html
2.http://hingaiapeninsulaschool.blogspot.com/2012/11/2012-term-4-week-3-hps-masterchef.html

Students Blogs:
1. http://hps3-2012.blogspot.co.nz/2012/10/student-master-chef-and-5-day.html
2. http://hps3-2012.blogspot.co.nz/2012/11/hps-master-chef.html
3. 5+ A Day Runner-Up http://hps3-2012.blogspot.co.nz/2012/12/5-day-competition.html


Local Newspaper: 13 November 2012



A group of students also created a school recipe book and we were runners up in the 5+ A Day competition;  but more importantly our school came together and created a sustainable tradition, one that will hopefully go on to inspire learning about food and healthy living every year.

To develop a culture in a school you need the full buy-in and ownership of everyone involved. The whole organisation needs to "talk the talk, and walk the walk" of healthy food; from making their own Kiwi Kai lunches to helping grow and use the vegetables and eggs in our school kitchen.

Where to next? 
We will continue to develop our gardens and new chickens into our daily learning and discovery. Next year gives us another opportunity to take part in national competitions that help give the students a  sense of a bigger community and audience. 

I would like to see the HPS Master Chef become more student focussed  perhaps more like the actual Master Chef, but inlcuding more students involvement (perhaps chef teams). Some students also raised money as part of the Bake a Difference, a national campaign to raise money during Blind Week; and it would be great to bring a real benefit to our community through our learning about growing, cooking and eating healthy food.

Adults and students alike love coming together to celebrate food which feeds our bodies and minds, plus there is so much "core curriculum" learning around it you just have no excuse but to have fun and get cooking!