Teachers

Teachers have a very important role to play in promoting health and wellbeing to students.

They can do this through the curriculum and the positive experiences they provide.

WASCA has a number of resources to support teachers and other school staff.

Healthy Food and Drink compliance

The Department of Education’s Healthy Food and Drink policy promotes healthy eating in schools. The policy is mandatory for all public schools (including Independent Public Schools). We have developed a range of compliance checklists with a specific Teacher checklist  that covers everything you need to know about complying with the policy in the classroom.

Did you know canteen vouchers always rate the highest for classroom rewards!  Download our pre-made canteen vouchers.

Recipes for the classroom

Cooking in the classroom is a great opportunity to teach students  some great skills while still focusing on healthy options. For some quick and easy classroom activities see the the recipes below or for a more comprehensive list see the recipe page

• Apple jaffle (green)
• Berry scone wedge (green)
• Carrot cake bliss balls (amber)
• Date balls (amber)
• Gingerbread people (amber)
• Gingerbread pikelets (green)
• Hot cross buns (green)
• Hot cross muffins (amber)
• Basic pizza dough (amber)
• Hot wheels (green)
• Spiced popcorn (green)
• Trail mix (green)

In the classroom

Focusing on nutrition education in the classroom needn’t be hard. Lynda Moira (Wembley Downs Primary School year two teacher) developed a fabulous lesson plan that promotes being healthy, safe and active. At the end of term Lynda completed the learnings with a visit from the canteen supervisor and WASCA. The lesson plan incorporates:

• the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating,
• looking at healthy choices in the school canteen
• how students can take responsibility for their own health and wellbeing.

If you have a great example of an activity or lesson for students about healthy eating, food and nutrition we would love to hear about. Please email Amanda.ferguson2@education.wa.edu.au

Broome Senior High School have demonstrated how the Food Technology Department can easily link with the school canteen to create healthy menu items; chosen by the students for the students. To see how it worked look at the Canteen Festival lesson plan.

To help get students focused on a whole school approach to healthy eating see our Student Tips fact sheet. It has loads of ways students can get involved and support the canteen while promoting healthy food and drink choices.

Christmas gifts can also support healthy choices.  The Crunch&Sip team at the Cancer Council have put together some fun and interesting ideas for things you can make at home or in the classroom. These gifts are more thoughtful and more nourishing than a pack of bickies. They’re also a fun way to get the kids involved in the spirit of giving! See the full range of ideas on the Crunch&Sip website.

Supporting healthy food and drink choices

Making healthy drink choices is easy with this great Drinks fact sheet for teachers. See some great suggestions for classroom activities and tips on how to encourage the best choices for students.

Food and drinks provided to students when on camps or excursions must comply with the Department of Education’s Healthy Food and Drink policy. Both of these activities are the perfect platform to role model healthy choices and provide the opportunity to encourage healthy choices. For more information see the two fact sheets:

• Camps and the Healthy Food and Drink policy
• Excursions and the Healthy Food and Drink policy
• Sports carnival catering

Alcohol related harm priorities

The Public Health Advocacy Institute of WA have recently released a document that outlines evidence-informed and consensus-based priorities for the prevention of alcohol-related harm through Western Australian schools and broader communities. The priorities are intended to be used by health professionals, school staff, and those working within and with the school communities to help guide action to prevent alcohol-related harm among young people. See the full Priorities for action to prevent alcohol related harm through school communities document for more information.

Healthy school – Healthy Student resources

The purpose of these resources is to make provide practical tips for classroom teachers on how they can contribute to the creation of a healthy environment at their school whilst supporting the Department of Education’s Healthy Food and Drink (HFD) policy.

The ABCD of packing healthy lunchboxes

Choosing items from each of the five food groups will give children all the nutrition they need to play and to learn for the whole school day. Download the ABCD flyer (A4) or ABCD poster (A3) to help make this task a little easier.

The ABCD flyer has recently been translated for those families where English as an additional language or dialect (EALD/D), see a full list below.

Arabic    Burmese    Dari    Dinka    Farsi    Hindi    Indonesian    Japanese   Karen

Korean    Simplified Chinese    Swahili    Tagalog    Thai    Tigrinya    Vietnamese

For additional resources for EALD/D families see the Department of Education’s  EALD/D page .

Class parties and celebrations made easy

Class parties and other celebrations are an excellent opportunity to reinforce the healthy eating habits taught throughout the year.

Download WASCA’s ‘Class parties and celebrations‘ fact sheet for some healthy and fun ideas!

Foodbank in the classroom

Superhero Foods HQ provides engaging and fun nutrition education and cooking resources tailored for school aged children. Visit the website to access collector cards, story books, recipe booklets, posters, lesson plans, clipart, newsletter inserts and more. These resources are excellent for use in the classroom as teaching tools and classroom rewards. All resources are available to download, free of charge. Hard copies are available to order (fees may apply) – contact Foodbank WA for further details – Superherofoods@foodbankwa.org.au

Foodbank School Breakfast Program 

Foodbank WA has been running a School Breakfast Program (SBP) since 2001 in response to a growing awareness that students were going to school most days without eating breakfast. Over 490 schools across the state were involved in the Program in 2019, stretching from Kalumburu and Kununurra in the north to Esperance and Albany in the south, to remote schools along the South Australia/Northern Territory borders.

In 2019 the Program directly reached over 21,500 children, serving over 69,900 breakfasts and almost 25,900 ’emergency’ meals per week.

Foodbank WA supplies quality SBP food products to registered schools free of charge, to ensure that all students have an equal opportunity to receive a wholesome, nutritious breakfast on a regular basis. Non-perishable SBP products include:

• wheat biscuits and oats
• canned fruit in natural juice
• canned spaghetti, canned baked beans
• UHT milk.
• Vegemite
• Where possible and subject to availability, schools are able to access fresh produce, including bread, fresh fruit and vegetables and yoghurt.

For more information about Foodbank WA’s School Breakfast Program, resources and the steps for implementation, visit Foodbank WA

Refresh.ED

Refresh.ED provides teachers with a suite of free online K-10 food and nutrition teaching resources. Developed at Edith Cowan University, these materials are designed to support teachers to integrate content on food, nutrition, healthy eating and food preparation skills into a range of learning areas in the Australian Curriculum. Our teaching units are developed to enhance student food literacy across four key areas: Food and Drink Source, Choice, Experience and Health. Each of these focus areas are comprehensively explored across the year levels, allowing for the inclusion of challenging nutrition topics such as making healthy choices, nutrition misinformation, food labelling and critiquing media influences. Refresh.ED also provides teachers with online professional learning materials including nutrition information sheets, educational videos and links to topical food and nutrition news articles.