Healthy Eating

Brocks Hill is an innovative and forward-thinking school with the children’s mental health, physical health and well-being at the heart of what we do. We endeavour to combat child obesity and support our pupils in making informed choices which is crucial in a child’s development as well as creating the foundations for a lifetime of good food choices.

Obesity is caused by an energy imbalance: taking in more energy through food than we use through activity.

Did you know;

• One in five children leave primary school obese.
• More than one-third of the vegetables that children eat are processed with 17% of the veg in children’s diets coming from pizza and baked beans.
• 30% of 4-to-10-year-old’s daily sugar intake is found in sugary drinks.
• We spend more each year on the treatment of obesity and diabetes than we do the police, fire service and judicial system combined.

The Government now provides a Universal free school meal for every child in Early Years Foundation and Key Stage One.  This means that parents of children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 do not have to pay for school lunches.    

At Brocks Hill, our catering service and kitchen team works hard to ensure the children have access to nutritious food. We do this in innovate ways such as replacing deserts twice a week to starters of wholesome soup or fruit platters. The deserts that we do serve are low in sugar as the amount of sugar that children consume daily is a major contributing factor to gaining weight. We also conduct regular pupil voice surveys to find out what they enjoy eating in order to cater for their likes.

We are also a Food for Life school. Research shows that pupils in Food for Life schools are twice as likely to eat five a day and a third less likely to eat no fruit or vegetables than pupils in comparison schools.

We deliver 'Happy Lunchtimes', which gives the children the opportunity for a variety of physical play activities, to socialise across key stages and to develop good manners. Our lunch time team are trained to ensure that lunchtimes are a happy and productive part of the school day because they understand the impact that healthy food and physical activity has on children’s mental health and wellbeing.

As parents, your role is vital, schools cannot combat child obesity alone.

Our Home Learning booklet contains many ideas linked to cooking, growing and physical activity. Low levels of activity – and increased sedentary behaviours among children – exacerbate the problems of poor diet and nutrition. Physical activity has many health benefits such as muscle and bone strength, health and fitness, improved quality of sleep, maintenance of a healthy weight, improved mental health and academic performance.

Together, we need to model healthy behaviours and be a beacon of best practice.

 

Food for Life Parents Pack
Food for Life

 

Food for Life Parents Pack
Food for Life State of the Nation