British Nutrition Foundation debuts visual food roadmap to bolster healthy eating in UK schools

09 Aug 2023 --- The British Nutrition Foundation (BNF) has launched a food roadmap to complement the food curriculum guiding teachers and students on topics and practices for healthy eating and cooking.

“Our aim is that "Food A Fact of Life "(FFL) is a comprehensive, progressive education program. The roadmaps can demonstrate progression to teachers and pupils directly and provide clarity about what they should know now and in the future,” Ewen Trafford, nutrition education officer at the BNF and author of the roadmap, tells Nutrition Insight.

“The roadmaps, along with our related resources at each age phase, should give pupils the skills they need to understand how they can access, prepare and cook healthy meals as adults. They should also foster an understanding of the origins of the foods they eat every day.”

The roadmaps are a visual guide to food and nutrition education focused on children between three and 16 years old.

Roadmap to health
The guide has been designed to help schools audit their food curriculum, plan their future food curriculum and take a holistic approach to food-related teaching.

The Food A Fact of Life roadmap will help teachers show pupils their food learning pathway supporting the Ofsted Framework’s “intent, implementation and impact” module. It serves as an educational tool supporting the UK government’s recommendations for food strategies. It can be used as a progress indicator at every stage of learning.

“Before the roadmaps, our key facts for each age phase were spread throughout the website.

Now, they have been brought together to signpost teachers and pupils alike to the most relevant content for their age phase,” explains Trafford.

“The roadmaps can serve as a progress check for pupils at any stage of their learning journey. They can also be used to inform lesson planning, based on topics that may have been covered less, or areas that pupils may be less confident in.”

The core topics are those that should be covered through primary and secondary food and nutrition education. Each topic area corresponds to an online section, which goes into further detail and resources.

Teachable moments
The roadmaps offer a long-term overview of what has been taught and can be used to inform lesson planning based on topics that may have been covered less or areas that pupils may need more confidence in.

“The roadmaps are available in print and interactive versions. The interactive versions are a jumping-off point for teachers and pupils to quickly find the information for the age phase and topic they are studying. The print versions are ideal for printing off in large sizes and putting up in the classroom so pupils can use them to visualize their learning journey,” notes Trafford.The roadmaps are a long-term overview of relevant food topics.

“The key facts on the roadmaps are based on the core competences for children and young people aged 5-16 years, which lay out the need to know for pupils studying food.”

The roadmaps can be used alongside FFL knowledge organizers that collate facts on a topic in a simplified way. The knowledge organizers incorporate images, key terms, definitions and age-appropriate information. They can also be edited to suit the pupils’ needs and examination specifications.

Practical food knowledge
The practical arm of food education includes the FFL key stage three Schemes of Work (SoW) to allow pupils to prepare and cook dishes, taste food and perform investigations hygienically and safely.

It allows the students to demonstrate their understanding of food provenance, production and processing and apply their knowledge about healthy eating and nutrition.

The SoW are based on the KS3 Design and Technology: Cooking and Nutrition curriculum requirements. They were updated in 2017 following the introduction of the Eatwell Guide and again in 2020. The SoW can be edited to suit individual school settings.

Earlier this year, the BNF joined forces with the charity Magic Breakfast to drive research in child nutrition and investigate whether breakfast clubs – providing children with a meal in a social setting before school – can improve learning outcomes and physical and mental health.

Supporting initiatives
The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) launched Core Food Competences in 2007 for children and young people aged 5-16 years, in consultation with the BNF, setting a framework of essential themes for diet and health, consumer awareness, cooking and food safety for children.

The competences include an audit tool for teachers mapping out lessons, a guide for developers creating resources for schools and a framework to support curricular change and examination specifications.

BNF, along with Public Health England, FSA Northern Ireland, FSA Scotland and the Welsh government, initiated a review of the original framework in 2014 and 2016 in light of the Eatwell Guide.

The healthy eating initiatives are a response to rising numbers of children in the UK attempting to lose weight. Scientists have warned of a three-fold increase in the number of children who are at a healthy weight and are dieting.

In 2022, the BNF launched Teaching Primary Food and Nutrition, a nutrition and food education program in primary schools. The two-year program is supported by All Saints Educational Trust. It aims to “refresh” the knowledge of professionals in the education sector about nutrition and food so they can impart learnings to their students.

By Inga de Jong

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