Improving education and awareness about food nutrition in our region
PECT is working in partnership with Everyone Health to support schools across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough to adopt a positive approach towards healthy eating and nutrition.
Working as part of a wider ‘Healthy Schools’ programme, PECT aims to create environments that support children and their families to improve their well-being, as well as understanding the importance of healthy food and nutrition.
We offer training, lesson plans and resources for teachers to build their awareness and confidence in food education, plus opportunities for students to learn more about and take part in workshops to discover how our food affects us, how it is grown, where it comes from and a variety of different cooking methods. We also offer parental engagement sessions too.
Why are we doing it?
Food and nutrition is a major part of all our lives; it impacts us both physically and mentally and this is no different for children. A healthy diet has a positive impact on how well children do in school as well as their overall health and well-being. Getting children to eat well is a challenge. We know that children aren’t getting enough fruit, vegetables and fibre, are eating too many foods that are high in saturated fats and salt and are eating double the amount of sugar recommended.
We can play a crucial part in turning this around by teaching children about being healthy, allowing children to develop their cooking skills and giving children the opportunity to grow fresh food.
Healthy Schools is here to support schools and address these issues by offering opportunities for children to get hands-on with food. It encourages schools to take a whole approach to food including snacks, school meals and packed lunches. According to Public Health England, schools who take a ‘whole-school approach’, providing healthy meals to all students, show academic improvements at KS1 & 2.
As a partner, PECT will be supporting schools in being able to achieve this through teacher CPD, in-school workshops, lesson plans and resource provision as well as whole school approaches and parent engagement.
haf (holiday activities and food) programme
Alongside this, we have also partnered up with the Holiday and Activity Food programme, which is run by Healthy Schools Cambridge and Peterborough. They provide a wide range of activities and resources aimed at supporting healthy eating during the school holidays, including practitioner activity cards, family cook-along videos, recipes cards and home learning activities.
Discover more
If you would like to get involved from September 2019 we will be offering in-school lessons, assemblies, parents evenings, and teaching training sessions on healthy eating and nutrition so please do get in touch.
For more information contact 01733 568408 or email [email protected].
For more information about the wider programme, visit https://healthyschoolscp.org.uk/healthy-eating/food-smart-resources/
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