The Food Policy Group

The Food Policy Group is made up of the Headteacher and five parents who feel passionate about our children’s relationship with food and health.  The group was initially set up to rewrite our Food Policy, however we have ventured beyond this in several ways.

Firstly we thought it was important for the children to understand where their food comes from and to inspire our children to grow their own fruit and vegetables, so we have created a modest allotment in our spiritual garden.  Thanks to our wonderful cook, Michelle, the children have enjoyed home grown runner beans, courgettes, lettuce, tomatoes and carrots.  We are very grateful to the parents and grandparents who have been involved in this project.  Not only have the children enjoyed eating what they have grown, they have benefitted from being outside and learning new gardening skills. 

Added to which, the plants have generated a lot of interest from minibeasts and this has been a rich source of learning for the children at playtimes; our sunflowers have attracted a mass of bees and some Thistle caterpillars and the tomatoes that have fallen to the grown are ‘chomped on by greedy slugs’, Erin Y2. 

We have also been able to support others and donated some marrows to the Foodbank as part of our Harvest Celebration.  Following the success of our allotment, we intend to create a small herb/sensory garden and to plant some raspberry canes next year.

Secondly, we wanted to give the children more opportunities to prepare food at school, so we have worked with HC3S, our catering provider, to run pizza making workshops with all of the children. 

Thirdly, we wanted the children to be more active during their playtimes.  To this end we worked with Skip2Bfit who ran skipping workshops with all of the children.  We now have skipping ropes with counters as part of our playground activities.  The children have two minutes to see how many skips they can achieve.