As a fresh intake of children learns to sing: ‘The apples are ripe, and the plums are red. The broad beans are sleeping in their blankety bed’ from Cauliflowers Fluffy, older pupils race home to plant seeds and sell produce in the surprise-hit Roblox game Grow a Garden. But when it’s time to eat real food, are they learning how to make healthy choices?
Recent figures from the National Child Measurement Programme show that almost one in five children entering Reception is living with obesity, increasing to one in three by the time they reach Year 6. NHS data from 2022 highlights that 19% of 11 to 15 year olds are classed as obese.
Good nutrition is essential for maintaining physical health, which is why experts recommend aiming for at least five servings of fruit and vegetables every day. In addition, recent research suggests that what we eat also affects our mental health.
A poor diet during childhood can lead to all kinds of health problems down the road, including an increased risk of heart disease, stroke and high blood pressure. Obesity means children can’t always join in with their friends and can lead to bullying and self-esteem issues.
Frances Meek is education services manager at the British Nutrition Foundation and leads its Food – A Fact Of Life programme, which provides teaching resources for pupils aged three to 16. She explains the importance of adopting a whole-school approach, where food as education is spread across the day. ‘Schools need to consider breakfast clubs, the food they serve at lunchtime, and wraparound care at the end of the day. Every time pupils encounter food at school, it should align with the right nutritional messages,’ she says.
Children living in the most deprived areas are more than twice as likely to be affected by obesity as those in the least deprived areas. While schools should recognise the impact of the cost of living on families’ food choices, they are in a strong position to provide nutritional information to parents and carers to help children apply their learning.
Get hands on
In primary schools across England and Wales, cooking and nutrition form just one component of the design and technology curriculum. With so little available time, teachers sometimes struggle with leading practical food lessons in small classroom spaces. It’s not easy to manage a class of 30 young children with sharp knives and hot equipment.
However, pupils benefit greatly when they are able put theory into practice. ‘I’d like to see much more hands-on cooking at primary school level,’ says Frances. ‘It’s one thing for children to learn from a book, but practical cooking, in all its different guises, helps them learn to choose their own way towards a healthy and sustainable diet.’
‘Headteachers were telling me it was hard to run any practical cooking experiences at all,’ says Darren Tinkler, who runs Roots to Food, which delivers hands-on cooking sessions in schools.
‘I can teach 120 children a day in cross-curricular workshops that align with the national curriculum, ’he says. ‘For example, when we look at steaming, we also cover the water cycle and evaporation. Weighing and measuring naturally incorporate mathematical concepts, and discussing how food grows leads to questions about what makes plants green – that’s something they learn in Year 3,’ he adds.
Darren also incorporates elements of class topics into his workshops; for instance, if pupils are learning about Greece or Africa, he may develop a recipe that reflects the region’s culture. Once the school agrees on the recipe, he sends a list of ingredients to buy before the day.
‘Sessions are really hands on,’ he says. ‘We experience food using our senses, exploring flavour, texture, smell and taste. We discuss the different food groups, what makes a balanced meal and why it’s important for health.
’Working as a group has other benefits, too. Darren points out that when children see their friends enjoying a dish, they’re more likely to join in. ‘A child might say: “I don’t like peppers, but I like them in this dish,” or: “I like spinach now, but only when it’s cooked with potatoes.”’ At the end of the day, he shares recipes with the school so that parents can recreate the dishes at home. Feedback is positive, with many families reporting their children’s increased enthusiasm for trying different food at home.
Dispelling myths
By expanding the discussion, schools can enable children to explore topics such as preventing food waste, selecting local produce and eating seasonally. They can also examine how advertising, social media and peer pressure influence our food choices.
Frances Meek says: ‘If you look at TikTok, you will see a number of claims around food and nutrition that just aren’t true. They are put out by people who aren’t experienced and aren’t specialists. At the British Nutrition Foundation, we work to dispel these myths and get the message out to teachers that facts around food must be based on evidence, not one person’s opinion.
‘Something as simple as understanding the colour-coded traffic light labelling on food packaging gives people the tools to effectively compare products and make decisions that are better for their wellbeing,’ she adds.
For Darren Tinkler, the most important lesson children can learn is that food is a life skill. For Year 6leavers, he delivers a gala dinner where pupils plan and cook a meal for up to 90 guests, including their families, governors, PTA members, headteachers and class teachers.
As well as taking on roles in the kitchen, children serve as waiters, waitresses and sommeliers. They create name cards, set tables, write menus and learn about everything that contributes to running a restaurant. Darren calls this ‘a fun way to introduce them to potential career paths’.
In secondary school sessions, young people explore budgeting, and start to build the confidence to cook for themselves. ‘We discuss practical tips, such as sharing the cost of ingredients with friends, batch cooking and freezing meals for later,’ says Darren.
Doing more with less
While time and money do present barriers, schools can achieve remarkable results. As a secondary school teacher, Frances witnessed the impact of additional funding when her school used PTA funds to refurbish the practical food room.
Darren highlights that many schools are surprisingly adventurous in their approach. He sees primary schools ‘with a full kitchen where they regularly make things like fruit kebabs and basic breads’. And while some PTAs fund his workshops, others contribute by providing a cupboard full of essential kitchen tools, such as chopping boards, saucepans and knives.
To teach children about how plants grow, schools can establish a garden or allotment. These spaces not only serve as a hands-on learning experience but can also provide fresh ingredients for simple recipes. Handy parents and local companies often donate materials and volunteer their time to support these schemes. Some schools work with food repurposing organisations to access surplus food, promoting sustainability and reducing waste.
Experiencing agriculture firsthand through trips to farms, visiting factories and enjoying food-based walking tours can greatly enrich a child’s education. Some schools have set up farmers’ markets on their grounds as a way to expose children to exciting ingredients while also raising funds. If money is tight, invite a guest speaker to hold an assembly in which pupils can ask questions or find out if your school is eligible to apply for a grant to support an after-school club.
Food is more than just sustenance. It can grow healthy minds and bodies, connect us to our cultural roots and shape how we interact with others. It’s what we’re made of – its rainbow colours inspiring the songs we sing and the games we play.
Join the Snack-tember challenge
Frances Meek explains how schools can join this month-long event.
This September, we’re excited to launch Snack-tember at the British Nutrition Foundation. We’re encouraging pupils to discover the fun of creating and enjoying healthy snacks.
As the new school year begins, we want to encourage a fresh mindset around snacking. Our focus is on children and young people aged five to 16, but we especially want to reach pupils in the first two years of secondary school when they are in a new environment with lots of choice and a little bit of money in their pockets. Our goal is to help them make healthier and more sustainable snack selections.
We are also urging retailers and caterers to rethink the snacks they offer to children and young people. We’ve developed five hero recipes, accompanied by videos to guide pupils in preparing these dishes, which can also be incorporated into lessons. In addition, we are offering a variety of resources for schools to motivate pupils, and a parent guidance sheet along with resources for caterers and support materials.
Register at nutrition.org.uk/snack-tember-2025
‘The children love cooking healthy dishes in the food tech space we funded’
Claire Gibson, former deputy chair, St Andrew’s CofE Primary School PTFA, Clacton-on-Sea, Essex (202 pupils)
We’re a small village school, but we have quite a few deprived families in our community. Once a week, we have a food bank, with produce set up on a table at the front of the school. We often give away fruit and vegetables that the children have grown themselves in the school allotment – something the PTFA funded a few years ago.
A while back, we started thinking how great it would be if the kids could not only grow their own food but cook it too, so they could learn how to make freshly prepared, healthy meals. When we talked to the school, we discovered that the only food tech equipment they had was a portable two-ring hob that had to be wheeled from classroom to classroom, which wasn’t great!
There was a small staff kitchen that was hardly ever used, so we asked if we could turn it into a new food tech space for the kids. We really wanted the children to be able to get out of the classroom into a dedicated area where they could learn about cooking.
We raised funds for the project with weekly ice cream sales in the summer and a massive raffle at Christmas. The raffle raised almost£1,000, and my employer Barclays match funded that amount.
I did a lot of the initial labour myself in the summer holidays, ripping out the old kitchen units and pulling up the flooring. Then we put a call-out to parents on Classlist. Luckily we have a lot of tradespeople in our school community and some came forward to help. One parent put us in touch with their friend who is a builder. He knocked down a partition wall and did some plastering for us at minimal cost. A dad who’s an electrician took out the old light fittings and put in motion-sensor lights, while one of the granddads offered to fit the kitchen for us and donated the tiles and a sink.
We bought the rest of the kitchen from Howdens, who kindly threw in two ovens for free when we explained our project to them. Our local Asda community champion was also amazing – she donated all the kitchen utensils and even offered to come in and give the kids a healthy eating talk and make fruit kebabs with them.
When the project was finished, we invited reps from all the companies that had helped us to come in and bake cupcakes with the kids. The cupcakes had green butter icing to match the school colours, and sprinkles on top.
Since the food tech kitchen has opened, the kids have enjoyed being able to get out of the classroom and do something hands on. A lot of the SEN kids, in particular, find it really therapeutic.
It’s definitely helped the children understand where their food comes from, and to realise that meals don’t have to come in a plastic container from a supermarket. They now do things like make their own pasta sauces from carrots and tomatoes that they’ve grown themselves in the allotment or cook potatoes that they’ve just dug up, and they find it really rewarding.
‘Pupils in every year use our kitchen for lessons across the curriculum’
Hayley Halliwell, teacher, Chetwynde School, Barrow-in-Furness (564 pupils)
When I arrived at Chetwynde, an all-through school, as a design and technology teacher, the pupils only had a tiny room with one oven in it to practise cooking, and most of the food tech classes were theory lessons.
I noticed there was a room that housed 3D printers but that already had running water, so I asked the school if the printers could be moved and we could turn it into a food tech room. They really liked the idea, and the PTA kindly agreed to donate £3,000 towards the project.
We searched for cheap, non-brand appliances and used school maintenance staff, who are trained electricians and plumbers, for the fit-out, which saved a lot of money. They installed four sets of ovens and electric hobs, a dishwasher and a fridge freezer, and put in a big worktable in the middle of the room for food prep.
Around the same time, I saw a post on social media about Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food initiative. I thought that since we were getting a new kitchen, it was the perfect moment to apply. The initiative is a ten-week teaching package for Years 7 to 9, aimed at encouraging pupils to make their own food from scratch, informing them about nutrition and giving them the basic cooking skills that will set them up for life. It comes with all the lesson plans, worksheets, recipes, videos and activities you need, and at the end all the children get certificates.
One of the first activities we did as part of it was to make one-cup pancakes. They’re really quick and easy to do, but they offered the opportunity to talk about things like what kind of flour to use to get the most fibre, and what toppings would be the healthiest. Once the kids had learned how to make the pancakes, our local MP came in and joined them all for a cook-off!
Pupils have also made recipes such as tomato soup with celery and carrot, which went down a treat with them, and easy spaghetti with arrabbiata sauce, made entirely from scratch. They’re all good, healthy recipes that aren’t too intimidating, and it’s taught them the importance of making meals fresh, rather than opting for convenience foods or takeaways.
Now that we have the new facilities, we’re able to offer Food & Nutrition as a GCSE option, as well as a vocational award in Hospitality & Catering. But the whole school has been using the new facilities, from Year 1 right up to Year 11, and one of the best things about it is that it’s being used in a cross-curricular way. An English class came in to make flatbreads the other day, having read about them in a book, and a French class used the kitchen to cook up some traditional French dishes, which I think is wonderful.
