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.
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
Supporting healthy 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.
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 resource is consistent with the Australian Curriculum: Health and Physical Education, other Australian Curriculum learning areas where healthy lifestyle messages are explored and the Health Promoting Schools Framework. Hard copies of the resources have been sent to all schools in Western Australia.
- HFD policy and traffic light system of categorising foods
- The ABCD lunchbox
- We touch on allergy and food safety
- Each family will be given a Packed with Goodness resource, specifically designed to help parents provide healthy food for their children
- Each teacher will be given a resource pack with posters and a Healthy School Healthy Student teacher guide.
WASCA works in partnership with other health professional in regional and remote WA, many of whom are available to deliver kindy orientation sessions on WASCA’s behalf. There is currently no cost for kindy sessions. To book a session please email amanda.ferguson2@education.wa.edu.au
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 430 schools across the state are now involved in the Program, 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.
The Program directly reaches over 18,000 children, serving over 58,000 breakfasts and 24,000 ’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:
- canned fruit in natural juice
- wheat biscuits and oats
- Vegemite
- canned spaghetti, canned baked beans
- UHT milk.
- where possible (subject to availability) schools are able to access fresh produce, including bread, fresh fruit and vegetables and yoghurt.
More information the SBP, resources and the steps for implementation can be found at 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.
