Welcome to the April issue of the primary newsletter intended especially for teachers and pupils. Please pass on any ideas or information that you find useful to parents and carers too.

Special reminder to all registered schools! We’re now half way through the Year of Food and Farming so now is the time to add news of your activities to date and your plans for spring and summer on your very own Space. Let us know just what you’ve been up to by posting photos, stories, blogs or video on your Space.

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The ‘school dinner revolution’ in primary schools

This month, we’re taking a look at school meals. The introduction of new standards for food served or sold in schools began in September 2006 when the interim food based standards for school lunches brought in. This was followed by food based standards for food other than lunch and from September this year all primary schools must meet the new nutrient based standards for school lunches. Secondary schools must follow suit by September 2009.

The new standards were developed by the Department of Education and Science and the Food Standards Agency following the research report (No.753) on school meals in primary schools. The report showed that children were not making healthy food choices at lunch time and that school meals did not meet their nutritional needs. The new standards will ensure increased provision of healthier foods, restriction of junk foods high in fat, sugar and salt and the improvement of the quality of food provided, with set minimum levels for nutritional content of school meals.

Support for schools is being offered in several ways and you can access information through the School Food Trust website www.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk. The School Feast Network has been set up to support all those involved in providing school meals, and their employers, by providing support, guidance and access to training and qualifications. Go to the School Food Trust website or directly to www.schoolfeast.co.uk for more information.

Over 1700 schools have now signed up to the ‘Million Meals Campaign’ which aims to ensure that one million more children are eating school meals by the end of 2010. Schools, teachers, parents and carers, even those just interested in this very worthwhile campaign can find out more by going to www.millionmeals.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk

Schools can now apply for the New School Lunch Grant, available from April 2008 until March 2011. This grant replaces the Targeted School Meals Grant (5a) and the School Meals Grant (5b). The purpose of this grant is to focus on increasing the take up of school lunches, specifically by helping to keep down prices. For more information go to www.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk/faqa/funding

The curriculum activities and ideas on offer in this e-newsletter all focus on the theme of school meals. You can read all these suggestions below.

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What’s in season in April?

Vegetables: Morel mushrooms, early new potatoes, spinach, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, leeks, kale, radishes, watercress, rosemary and rosemary flowers*
Fruit and nuts: Rhubarb
Game: Rabbit, hare and pigeon
Fish: First crabs, cockles, salmon, trout, shrimp and lobster
Cheese: Single Gloucester, Double Berkeley and fresh goat’s milk cheeses

*Rosemary flowers look good and add a delicate flavour to sweet dishes such as ice cream, mousse or fool. They can also be added as an attractive garnish to meat and fish dishes and salads.

For more information on sourcing your food locally click on the link to ‘Growing’ on the home page.

What’s happening on the farm?

As the weather becomes warmer dairy herds and beef cattle are now turned out into the fields. Calving continues and the lambing season draws gradually to a close. Arable and vegetable farmers are busy preparing fields in earnest now; ploughing, digging, harrowing and marking out their land in preparation for planting out. Fertiliser is spread to aid spring growth and many vegetables including potatoes, mangetout, beans, carrots and cabbages are being planted out. The trees in the fruit farms are beginning to blossom.

For more information on the importance of farming today click on the link to ‘Resource Bank – Farming Matters’ on the home page.

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The Suffolk Food and Farm Fair:

Now in its seventh year, the Fair will take place on the 28-29 May. There will be over 670 livestock and equine classes and over 700 trade stalls. The theme this year will be ‘Suffolk’s Hidden Treasure’ in conjunction with the International Year of the Potato, with children having the chance to dig up potatoes for themselves. Amongst the many attractions will be the Countryside Ring Activity Area which will include birds of prey, dipping at the wildlife pond, sheepdog and ferret demonstrations and a footprint trail.

There are also dog classes, Sussex working horse demonstrations, cookery demonstrations, a children’s farm… and much, much more. For more information go to www.suffolkshow.co.uk

Sainsbury’s Active Kids Get Cooking 2008:

You have only got until the 23rd May to get in your entries for the Active Kids Get Cooking competition 2008. This competition which encourages and celebrates cooking offers your pupils the chance to win cash prizes for their school. Prizes are given to primary and secondary winners in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Entries from special schools are welcomed. All the details can be found at www.activekidsgetcooking.org.uk

Can you find the real Shaun?

Children up to the age of 12 are being encouraged to get out into the countryside this spring and see if they can find the real Shaun the Sheep. Photographs of Shaun look-a-likes can be entered into the ‘Find the Real Shaun’ competition by the 8th June 2008, at www.yearoffoodandfarming.org.uk. For the best Shaun the Sheep look-a-like, there is a chance to win an exclusive framed still from the Shaun the Sheep series, signed by the director, and a free family ticket to visit a national farm attraction. For all the details visit www.yearoffoodandfarming.org.uk

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This month we turn our attention to the food pupils (and staff) eat whilst they are in school. Teachers will need to adapt the ideas offered to what is actually happening in their own school but the guidelines below will get you started.

Are you eating your ‘Five a day?’

Start the investigation with children of all ages with the question ‘Why do we need lunch?’ Ensure your pupils understand the concept of ‘fuel’ for their bodies. Younger children should be able to discuss how they know they are hungry and begin to grasp the concept of food giving them the energy they will need for the rest of the day. Older pupils can identify how food acts as a fuel to the body and what happens to the body if the food is not nutritious?

What sort of lunches can pupils have in their own school? Are cooked school meals available? Can pupils bring in lunch boxes from home? Get an idea of who does what. What does the class teacher do for lunch? What do other staff members do? Why do pupils think that some people eat school lunches and others bring in food from home?

Still looking at school meals, move the main focus to fruit and vegetables. Do pupils understand why fresh fruit and vegetables are such an important part of a nutritious diet? How easy is it to eat your ‘five a day’? It is much easier to achieve if you ensure that you are using all the ‘eating opportunities’ in a day to help towards your 5 a day goal. Do the pupils and staff in your school use all the available opportunities to eat fruit or vegetables? How many pupils like fruit? How many like vegetables? Does it matter if we don’t eat fruit and vegetables? Why are they so important to our diet?

Older pupils can consider the importance of fruit and vegetables in more detail with an introduction to the concept of a balanced diet and ways to achieve this such as the ‘Eatwell Plate’ www.eatwell.gov.uk/healthydiet/eatwellplate. Younger pupils can begin to understand the importance of different foods and why we can’t just eat jam or marmite sandwiches and chocolate... why we need a mixture of foods (as a simple introduction to the idea of a balanced diet).

Take your investigation a bit further according to the age of your pupils. Vegetables can usually do with a bit of a ‘promotion’ with children! For the younger children, find out who likes what and make a large classroom pictogram. Pupils can bring in their favourite vegetable for a ‘Show and Tell’ session and you could also cook and eat them later in the day. Take a look at the recipe ideas later in the newsletter. Here is a lovely idea for younger children called ‘Fairytale Peas’:

  • Take a pea and place it under your mattress
  • If you sleep soundly – you’re not a princess, I’m afraid
  • If you don’t then you are a princess, so eat the pea with lots of champagne and caviar!

* ‘Fairytale Peas’ come from ‘The Friendly Vegetable Book’ written by Tina Deubert

Teachers could easily adapt this for an infant classroom:

  • Take a pea and place it under your mattress
  • If you sleep soundly − you’re not a princess or a pirate, I’m afraid, and you must eat more vegetables… but you can still cook in school tomorrow
  • If you don’t sleep soundly − you are a princess or a pirate! Fantastic but princesses and pirates still need to eat their vegetables… so you must practise cooking them in school tomorrow

Tell your pupils the ‘Pea Story’. You can make up any fun way to introduce the idea. Give them all a pea to take home and pop under their pillow to find out if they are princesses or pirates. (You had better warn the parents and also devise a way to get the peas safely home!) Ask your pupils to bring back their peas next day and be ready to tell everyone else whether they are princesses or pirates. This should make a couple of circle times a lot of fun and you can have an enjoyable cookery session with one of the recipes suggested below. What you do with the squashed peas is up to you!

Older pupils will also enjoy a similar silly activity. After all, learning should be fun. Future sports champions or pop stars might be more appropriate. Remember it’s just a bit of fun! Older children can also work more seriously by making surveys of favourite vegetables and displaying the information in graphs or Venn diagrams. They could then investigate more fully just why vegetables are so good for us and try and think up some ways to make eating them more appealing. You may like to use the recipes below to get their imaginations flowing. You could make up a class cookery book with these and the pupils’ own recipes in them.

Here are some recipe ideas to make eating vegetables a little more fun:

‘Peas Hiding’

Cook some conchiglie pasta or pasta tubes such as penne in plenty of boiling water

Fry a chopped onion or two in a little vegetable or light olive oil until tender then add fresh or frozen peas, stir and cook for a couple of minutes

Mix the combined peas and onions with the drained, cooked pasta – some of the peas will ‘hide’ in the shells or tubes!

Sprinkle grated cheese over the top or mix in a spoonful or so of cream cheese to make it saucier

‘Green Pancakes’

Add finely chopped raw spinach to your normal pancake batter mix

Cook one side of the pancake

Turn it over and sprinkle grated cheese on top to melt while the other side cooks

Serve with salad or raw vegetable sticks

‘Carrot and Orange Jelly’

Boil water to make an orange jelly

Grate a carrot finely

Zest the skin of an orange

Add the grated carrot and orange zest and leave the jelly to set

‘Green Bean Ice Pops’

Steam some green beans

Run under cold water, drain and dry

Freeze on a tray then pop in a bag

Eat them straight from the freezer!

With thanks to Tina Deubert for the recipes

For more information on sourcing your food locally click on the link to ‘Growing’ on the home page

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The school vegetable garden :

  • Keep on top of weeds with regular hoeing.
  • Soil needs to be around 5-6°C for seeds to germinate or grow. You can usually tell when the soil is warm enough as the grass starts to grow. If you want to help warm the soil before you plant, cover your ground in black or clear plastic sheets or cloches. (Dustbin bags split open will do).
  • Don’t plant seeds in ground that is too wet or they may rot.
  • You can sow the following this month: broad beans, early carrots, parsnips, peas, spinach beet, radishes, turnips.
  • You can plant out the following: asparagus, onion sets, potatoes, shallots, Jerusalem artichokes.

Here is a guide to help you grow potatoes. You could have a class ‘baked potato party’ later on in the year!

  • Potato seed tubers need to sprout before you plant them out. This is called ‘chitting’. Egg boxes are ideal for potato chitting. Place the tubers in ‘eye’ end up as this is where the sprouts will grow from.
  • Meanwhile, dig compost well into the soil in preparation for the sprouting tubers. You will need about two wheelbarrows of compost for every 10 metres of ground.
  • When your tubers are ready to plant out place them either in trenches or in individual holes about 7-15cm deep. Cover well with soil.

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Curriculum links:

If you structure a programme of learning around this newsletter’s focus on growing and the related curriculum activities, you would have the opportunity to visit the following links in programmes of study. Please be aware that you would have to ensure coverage of the links through your own planning.

Science:
KS1: Science 2-Life processes & living things: 1b, c; 2b, f; 3a, b, c; 5a, c;
 Sc 1Knowledge, skills & understanding: 1, 2a, b, e, g;
 Breadth of study: 1a, 2a; and also 1c, d if growth experiments and gardening are undertaken
 KS2: Science 2-Life processes & living things: 1a, b, c; 2b, f; 3a, b, c;
 Sc 1 Knowledge, skills & understanding: 1a, b; All of 2;
 Breadth of study: 2a, b, g, h, I, j, k, l;

PSHE:
KS1: Knowledge, skills & understanding: 1a, b; 4b;
 Breadth of study: 5 d;
 KS2: Knowledge, skills & understanding: 1a; 3a; 4a; 5d;

Design and Technology:
KS1: Knowledge, skills & understanding: 1b, c, d; 2a, f;
 Breadth of study: 5b, c;
 KS2: Knowledge, skills & understanding: 1c, d; 2a, f; 3a; 4a;
 Breadth of study: 5b, c;

English:
KS1: Knowledge, skills & understanding: 1a through to f; 2a through to e; 3 a through to e;
 Breadth of study: 9a, b; 10a, b, c;
 KS2: Knowledge, skills & understanding: 1a through to e; 2a through to e; 3a through to c;
 Breadth of study: 9c; 10a, b, c.

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Corbridge CE First School

Corbridge First School in Northumberland has a strong interest in environmental and green issues. The school has their own allotment, which the children maintain regularly during weekly gardening club. They often use the produce from the school allotment to prepare school lunches. Therefore, the children develop an understanding about where their food comes from. The nursery class visited Hall Hill Farm and got some hands on experience of life on a farm!

www.yearoffoodandfarming.org.uk/spaces/corbridgefirstschool/School

Further resources

British Potato Council (BPC) – has produced a new recipe guide to inspire school caterers across Britain to include potatoes in nutritionally balanced meals that children will eat and enjoy. New recipes are given alongside more familiar dishes, all forming part of a healthy balanced diet with a strong appeal to children. They also offer great value for money for schools. The ten recipes have been approved by the British Nutrition Foundation and can be used as part of a day-to-day meal service or as the central focus of a themed ‘Potato Day’ at their school. Printed copies of the recipe guide are available on request from BPC marketing, along with the ‘Guide to holding a Potato Day’ and the ‘Guide to setting up a Jacket Potato Bar’, by calling 01865 714455 or emailing [email protected]. All three packs are also available to request via the BPC’s website www.potatoesforcaterers.co.uk

Free interactive height chart for schools – The British Potato Council has produced an interactive height chart so that children can track the progress of their plants and enhance the whole potato growing experience. Containing weekly tips on the best way to grow a large crop of potatoes, this colourful height chart will enrich the learning experience. It can be used on any variety of potato plant and is available free of charge on a first come, first served basis. To order yours, simply email [email protected] with your full contact details.

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Two serious facts...

  • Over 3 million school meals are served every day but not all schools offer hot meals. Fewer than 50% of primary pupils eat school dinners.
  • The first school dinners were introduced in 1880 but they were only available in a few schools for the poorest children. By 1980 local education authorities no longer had to provide school dinners at all.

And one fun fact...

  • Some popular names for school meals in the 1950s were ‘String and Gravy Stew’, ‘Goose pimple Jelly’ and ‘Slug Salad’!

Sources:

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