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• What is Phunky Foods?
• Where is Phunky Foods?

What is Phunky Foods?

PhunkyFoods is a 36 week rolling programme of healthy eating and physical activity lessons for every year group in primary school from Early Years to Key Stage 2, which builds year-on-year in to a full seven-year programme of work.

The programme aims to teach children key healthy eating and physical activity messages in a light hearted and fun manner through art, drama, music, play and hands-on experience with food. The full PhunkyFoods programme consists of one hour a week of healthy eating and one hour a week of physical activity for year groups 1 – 6 and 40 minute lesson plans based on healthy lifestyles for Early Years. All lesson plans have been designed by health professionals (Registered Nutritionists) with support from teachers to ensure both quality and content.

PhunkyFoods lesson plans are all fully supported by a range of resources, including interactive big books and DVD material, playing cards and a food blender which each school receives when they join the PhunkyFoods programme. Everything a school needs to run the PhunkyFoods lessons is found in their resource box.

Many of the resources have been produced by PhunkyFoods but we also use external resources sourced from extremely reputable charities and organisations such as the British Meat Education Service, Flour Advisory Bureau, Oxfam and The School Milk Project.

Implementing the PhunkyFoods programme

The PhunkyFoods programme is extremely flexible for use in schools, and as such may be delivered as an after-schools club, a lunch club or within the current taught curriculum, through subjects such as science or D&T. However PhunkyFoods was developed to be delivered within the newly assigned PPA time and a number of our schools are taking advantage of this innovative route of delivery.

As of September 2005 all primary schools in the UK had to implement the 10% statutory PPA time. This time is set aside for primary school teachers as non-contact time with the children for planning, preparation and assessment. The statutory PPA time equates to around 2 hours per week and this is a perfect opportunity for schools to implement PhunkyFoods. Teachers are freed from the classroom to carry out their PPA during these two hours because the programme has been designed to be delivered by classroom/teaching assistants.

The PhunkyFoods training programme

The PhunkyFoods team at Purely Nutrition train all classroom/teaching assistants in the basics of healthy eating and physical activity prior to them delivering the PhunkyFoods programme in schools. The objectives of the one day training course are to enable the classroom/teaching assistants to:

• Formulate ideas about the importance of healthy eating and physical activity for the health of children in school
• Understand the concept of the PhunkyFoods programme and be able to discuss the key components of the programme
• Identify and be able to talk at a basic level, with confidence, around the PhunkyFoods key messages
• Feel motivated and confident enough to implement the PhunkyFoods programme, with support, in school

Research evidence and need

The prevalence of overweight and obesity in school-age children in England and Wales has doubled in as little as the last ten years. The prevalence of obesity in children aged between 2 and 10 years now stands at over 15.5%. Research evidence from the National Diet and Nutrition Survey of young people aged 4 - 18 years also suggests that young people eat less than half the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables per day, and 20% eat no fruit at all in an average week. In addition 58% of 7-10 year-olds are largely inactive, that is spending less than an hour per day participating in activities of moderate intensity.

Purely Nutrition is a nutrition consultancy, run by degree qualified, Registered Nutritionists, specialising in training techniques for the incorporation of healthy eating and physical activity messages into daily life. As nutrition and fitness experts we acknowledge the enormous need for education and development of healthy eating and physical activity programmes for children in line with the national curriculum.

In society children receive mixed messages on a daily basis - tempting foods, clever advertising, and family members doing a different diet every week. This is why it is so important for young children to be given consistent, key messages coupled with the skills to make informed choices about food, healthy eating and physical activity.

In order to reverse the current negative trend in the UK it is essential that successful strategies for improving the diets of children are developed. Based on research commissioned by Purely Nutrition and Northern Foods (PhunkyFood's anchor sponsor) it was found that an appropriate healthy lifestyle intervention for children should.

• Target primary school children
• Be a comprehensive and on-going programme of work (not a one-off intervention)
• Be informed by children's views, experiences and food choice behaviours
• Include hands-on and "taster" experiences with foods
• Incorporate parental involvement

School-based interventions should;

• Build on the "whole-school" approach
• Engage and enlist the support of schools through school gate keepers
• Keep teacher preparation time a minimum
• Fit nutrition education into the existing curriculum in a time efficient manner
• Train teaching staff to build motivation and confidence in the subject area

And out of this research came PhunkyFoods.

The PhunkyFoods programme is currently undergoing an independently managed quantitative and qualitative study by the NFER (National Foundation of Education Research) to evaluate the impact of the programme on children’s knowledge and eating habits.