A Report on the Food Education Learning Landscape

is report was only made possible due to the

generous funding received from the

AKO Foundation.

e AKO Foundation is a UK charity with a focus

on education and the arts founded by Nicolai

Tangen, the CEO and founder of the AKO Capital

LLP

2.2 What is the current school food policy landscape?, page 15

2.3 Brief history of food education in schools in England, page 16

2.4 How is the food curriculum currently taught in the UK?, page 17

2.5 Who is being taught food education at school and college?, page 19

2.6 Routes to becoming a food teacher, page 20

2.7 Food teacher standards, page 20

2.8 Supporting food teachers with Continuing Professional Development (CPD), page 20

2.9 Where do teachers get lesson plans and resources?, page 21

3. Methodology, page 22

4. Findings, page 28

5. Recommendations, page 59

5.1 Ensure schools are healthy zones, page 60

5.2 Support the school workforce, page 64

5.3 Improve resources, page 67

5.4 Report back and evaluate, page 70

6. Case studies, page 74

7. Partner organisations, page 79

8. Endnotes, page 82

9. Bibliography, page 87

10. Acknowledgements, page 96

4

• e current UK Cooking and Nutrition curriculum page 17

• Who is being taught food education at school and college? page 19

• Senior Leaders’ Sample Prole page 24

• School Teachers’ Sample Prole page 25

• Parent survey sample prole methodology and sample prole page 27

• COM-B model of behaviour change page 29

• Teacher reported average hours spent per school year on food education by Key Stage page 33

• Emphasis placed on dierent elements of the Cooking and nutrition curriculum page 33

• Parental satisfaction with food education in schools page 34

• Monitoring and compliance with School Food Standards page 48

• Parental opinion on dierent aspects of school food policies page 49

• Foods high in salt, fat and sugar as part of fundraising page 50

• Foods high in salt, fat and sugar as part of school rewards page 51

• Foods high in salt, fat and sugar as part of school celebrations page 52

LIST OF TABLES/FIGURES

5

FOREWORD FROM JAMIE OLIVER

Childhood obesity has tripled over the past 30 years.

Food is no longer feeding us, it’s destroying us, and

education from day one. It’s been a personal journey

for me – from seeing rst-hand the shameful state of

school dinners back in 2005 to developing my own

food education programme, e Kitchen Garden

Project, and campaigning for better school food for a

decade.

is major report on food education, carried out

by my Foundation and helped by so many other

brilliant organisations, has studied all the data.

We’ve spoken to everyone, from headteachers to

about the food available, particularly in secondary

schools. But at the same time, we are really

motivated by the teachers, pupils and parents asking

be healthy and happy.

Every passing year is a wasted opportunity to tackle

this problem head-on. Now that we have the hard

evidence to back up the changes we need to make –

let’s do it! It’s time to give our kids the support they

need for a healthy future.

is report lays out the really important, practical

recommendations that I hope government, school

leaders and others will put into action.

Jamie Oliver

6

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

“Every kid in every school no matter their background,

deserves to learn the basics about food - where it comes

from, how to cook it and how it aects their bodies. ese

life skills are as important as reading and writing, but

they’ve been lost over the past few generations. We need

to bring them back and bring up our kids to be street

7

What did we nd out?

Cooking and Nutrition was introduced into the

English national curriculum for all 5-14 year olds

in 2014, but no study or evaluation has taken

place. e Jamie Oliver Food Foundation decided

to undertake a review to nd out how much food

education is going on in schools, and how eective

it is in helping our children develop key food skills

and a healthy attitude towards food. We wanted to

comment on current practice and unearth the pivotal

well as a large number of food education experts

who contributed time, expertise and resource in

gathering and analysing the data. We focused on

England, though used wider UK and international

data where relevant.

• What are pupils learning in their

food education?

• How are pupils learning? (i.e. who is

teaching; what kind of learning activities are

going on; what resources are available; where

eectiveness of food education and food culture

in schools, to enable pupils to learn about, and

put into action, healthy eating behaviour?

We held a number of cross sector workshops

themed around ‘Curriculum’, ‘Whole School

Approach’ and ‘Behaviour Change’ to determine

what the focus of our research work should be.

We found a wide dierence between those

schools that were doing a great job at delivering

strong school food education, and those schools

8

9

promoted through the policies and actions of the

whole school community.

Reporting and evaluation of food education, food

culture and food provision should be mandatory.

We must support the knowledge and skills

development of the whole school workforce to

enable quality food education delivery, supported

by a positive whole school approach to food.

Schools should be provided with the resources

to facilitate delivery of better, more consistent

all food consumed when at school.

• e Department for Education (DfE) and

the National Governors Association should

jointly reissue guidance for governors on their

responsibilities for school food, and consider

placing a ‘health and wellbeing’ statutory duty

of care onto governors.

• An expert group should come together to work

up specic guidance for secondary schools in

developing a positive school food ethos

carried out.

• Ofsted reports should always report back

on ways the school is addressing pupil’s physical,

nutritional and emotional health and wellbeing.

• Ofsted should ensure that inspectors have the

appropriate skills and competence in health and

wellbeing to be able to assess appropriately.

• DfE should commission the development of a

suite of professional development courses to

support the delivery of eective food teaching

wider initial teacher training routes.

• DfE and the Department for Environment,

Food and Rural Aairs (Defra) should

establish an educational/industry working

group to make recommendations as to the

appropriate mix of academic and vocational

food qualications.

• Government should consider investing in

a cross departmental/cross sector food

initiative aimed at promotion of food

scheme for schools should be investigated.

• Government should ensure the Healthy Pupils

Capital Fund is both targeted to those schools

that need the most help and is dependent on

schools achieving the Healthy Rating Scheme.

Key stage 1

• Use the basic principles of a healthy and varied diet to prepare dishes

• Understand where food comes from

Key stage 2

• Understand and apply the principles of a healthy and varied diet

• Prepare and cook a variety of predominantly savoury dishes using a range of cooking techniques

• Understand seasonality, and know where and how a variety of ingredients are grown, reared, caught

and processed

Key stage 3

• Understand and apply the principles of nutrition and health

• Understand the source, seasonality and characteristics of a broad range of ingredients

Food education is also taught through the subjects

of Science and Personal, Social, Health and

Economic (PSHE) education. In Science, the focus

is on understanding aspects of human nutrition and

digestion, whereas PSHE focuses on health

within a wider context of well being and making

food choices.

Other curriculum subjects can also contribute

through a cross-curricular approach, such as

Geography (where food grows), English

(following and writing recipes), Maths (weighing

and measuring), and History (how food choices

and consumption have changed over time). Physical

education plays an important role on physical

competency, and at Key Stage 3 healthy lifestyles

are introduced.

of academic and vocational data sets around food

education. And it doesn’t seem that vocational data

for 14-19 year olds is separated out. Additionally,

(Agriculture and/or Horticulture) and the Catering

and Hospitality industries which means data sets

that are collected are further split.

some form but are not taking a formal qualication.

For academic qualications there has been a marked

4,262 A or AS levels were awarded, this represents a

38% decrease in GCSE and 43% decrease in A level

from 2016 gures.

Year Groups Food related academic

14-16 year olds 57,893 GCSE

16-19 year olds 2,416 Food A Level

Agriculture, Horticulture and

Animal Care

2.6 Routes to becoming a food teacher

2.8 Supporting food teachers with Continuing

Professional Development (CPD)

In England, there are now many routes to acquiring

‘qualied teacher status’ (QTS). A useful table that

summarises this can be accessed from the House of

Commons Library.²

A primary school teacher will learn teaching skills

in order to teach a broad spectrum of subjects,

and there are generally no specialist routes

relevant course for what they will teach. However, in

relation to food they may have expertise in another

area of Design & Technology, such as resistant

materials or graphics, with food being a second

subject. Only a fth of secondary food teachers have

an A-level qualication in Food Technology.³

Food teacher numbers have declined in recent

years.³¹ In 2016, DfE reported there were only

4,500 food teachers across Key Stages 1, 2 and 3,

compared to 5,300 in 2011 (this compares to

management and provision of food teaching and

to develop guidelines for food teaching, to support

rigour and set standards. e published guidelines

for primary and secondary schools³² set standards,

expectations and requirements for qualied food

teachers.

e intention was for the framework to be used to:

e framework recognises the importance of food

teachers supporting a whole school approach by

saying that accomplished food teachers ‘Use their

expertise to support the whole school approach to food

have taken much of this away.³ Previous surveys

undertaken by the British Nutrition Foundation’s

research with primary school teachers in 2016

showed that only 3 in 10 of participating

teachers undertook any food related professional

development that year - and most of this was on

food safety. In order to further address this issue, the

British Nutrition Foundation launched an online

professional development training initiative for

teachers, entitled: Teaching food in primary schools: the

and set out expectations for qualied

teacher status.

• Audit current practice by existing teachers,

supporting performance related development.

• Support professional reviews with colleagues.

• Plan and run professional training courses to

support best practice.

2.7 Food teacher standards

2.9 Where do teachers get lesson plans

and resources?

ere are a wealth of teaching resources and

support out there for schools to be able to deliver

cooking and food education. A search on the Times

Educational Supplement’s popular teaching resource

portal shows the wealth and scope of resources -

11,985 resources³ for ‘food education’. A search of

‘food’ gave an even greater 42,636 resources.³

and the provenance of food. Such programmes and

organisations include the Children’s Food Trust’s

‘Let’s Get Cooking’, the Soil Association’s Food for Life

programme and the British Nutrition Foundation’s

Food - a fact of life.³ e Countryside Classroom³

portal also provides a place to access resources

farming and outdoor learning. And then there are

the many corporate school oers - voucher

schemes for cooking equipment, store or farm

visits and competitions.

3. METHODOLOGY

“We brought together representatives from across the

food education sector to consider what questions we

should ask.”

representatives from across the food education sector

to consider what questions we should ask in order to

establish a baseline around:

Representatives worked in three groups (Curriculum,

Whole School Approach and Behaviour Change)

to determine what the focus of our research work

should be. ey identied the following questions:

Four key strands of work were commissioned in

order to answer these questions:

In addition, informal telephone interviews were

all strands of work. All data collection took place

between June and August 2017.

• What pupils are learning in their food

education lessons following the introduction

of the new Cooking and Nutrition curriculum

three years ago.

• How pupils are learning (who is teaching,

what kinds of learning activities are going

on, what resources are available, where are

pupils learning, how does this vary across

within the D&T Cooking and Nutrition

curriculum compared to the food education

within wider delivery of curriculum?

3.1 Senior leaders

12%

50%

39%

30%

13%

12.5% 25%

37.5% 50%

41-50%

>50%

31-40%

21-30%

<20%

22.5% 45%

67.5% 90%

72%

78%

1%

0%

17.5%

12% 12%

1501+

1001-1500

500-1000

<500

12%

35%

43%

36%

79%

0%

41-50%

3.2 School food teachers survey

School food teachers are at the coalface of food

education, and as such have key insights on delivery

of the food curriculum. We hoped to gain from

them a detailed picture of what and how much

food education they are delivering and how this ts

with national curriculum guidance, as well as their

perspectives on the status of food education and

wider school food culture, including challenges to

high quality food education delivery. e British

this is nearly a quarter (24%) of all secondary food

teachers in publicly funded schools in England.¹

320 primary teacher responses were received, a lower

response rate for primary teachers was anticipated

as food is not taught as a specialist subject. For most

questions, a minimum of 750 secondary and 170

primary responses were completed.

43% of primary school respondents identied

themselves as being from local authority maintained

schools and 21% were from academies. 50% of

primary school respondents were from schools

with between 100 and 400 pupils, 10% were from

schools with less than 100 pupils. 83% reported that

their school has a statutory obligation to follow the

national curriculum.

pupils (13% and 17% respectively). 47% reported

the national curriculum.

Around half of the sample were located in urban

areas, and 1/5 in rural areas. At primary level, 23%

were urban schools in a predominantly rural area, at

secondary this rose to 27%.

17.5%

35%

52.5%

70%

Primary

School Teachers Sample Prole

500+

300-499

100-299

<100

12%

38%

50%

36%

30%

72%

78%

17%

Secondary

• Although most primary and secondary pupils are aware to some extent of the principles of healthy

• Pupils also report that they would like to learn more about how to prepare complete meals and

• ere are limited opportunities for pupils to develop cooking and healthy eating skills.

• In some primary schools, practical cooking education experiences are poor. is is inhibiting pupils’

• ere is limited evidence of pupils being taught how to apply the principles of a healthy diet in their

• Schools provide limited opportunities for pupils to learn about how to apply their knowledge

• Teachers report that they do not have the facilities such as cooking utensils and cookers they need,

• Class size inhibits the teaching of cooking skills, such as knife skills and cooking with ovens.

• Only 1 in 4 primary teachers and just over half (52%) of secondary teachers reported that most sta

told us that in more than half of primary schools,

pupils get less than 10 hours a year, but one in ten

get more than 30 hours. Time increases in secondary

4.3.2. Opportunities for learning about food and

3. However, between 11% and 16% of teachers

reported that pupils receive less than 10 hours

food education a year in Years 7-9.

Key Stage 1 (n=186)

Key Stage 2 (n=186)

Key Stage 3 (n=799)

Less than 10

11-20

21-30

More than 30

53%

14% 44% 24% 19%

28%

30% 8%

6%

9%

9%

22%

19%

56%

77%

4.3.6 Secondary school pupils report having

prepared in class on future occasions at home. For

example, very few pupils we spoke to had records of

the recipes they had used or notes on methods and

skills they had learned.

i) Although most pupils have learnt some basic

principles of nutrition and a healthy diet, depth of

knowledge varies considerably, and there is concern

that each Key Stage repeats, rather than builds on,

prior learning.

their contribution to health and wellbeing as part of

a balanced diet.

56% of primary teachers said that they placed a

signicant emphasis on healthy eating and nutrition

theory. At primary level there was a stark contrast

between those pupils who had learnt a lot about the

principles of a healthy diet and those who had not.

In some schools, pupils were able to describe with

condence the principles of a healthy diet, name

you, so you won’t want to make yourself ill because you’ve

and generally not in depth. Food diaries had been

we need to eat certain things, how it would help.(Year

10 pupil). is was certainly a missed opportunity.

4.3.8 Many pupils are not being given the

4.3.9 Experiential learning is a valuable part of

food education

“It’s harder to make healthy choices as well, cos there’s

hardly no fruit up there, nothing, no fruit or vegetables”

(Year 10 pupil).

With some exceptions, there was little evidence that

time had been spent discussing with pupils their

values and aspirations around food and health and

wellbeing in a way that would support them to make

healthy choices. Secondary pupils stated that they

rarely, if ever, have conversations with non-food

teaching sta about food choices.

with school to farms, farmers markets, restaurants,

and supermarkets. ere is strong evidence in the

learning outcomes. However, the frequency

of opportunities for food education through

experiential learning, particularly in terms of o-site

visits, varied considerably.

Some primary school children were able to recall

garden had been fenced o and had gone to ruin.

others were vague as to where the school garden

was (if there was one), and had certainly never

in secondary schools. Extra curricular activities

are used as a way of supplementing the formal

curriculum and can raise the prole of food and

Both primary and secondary pupils in some

schools said that they wanted more complexity and

challenge from their food education.

At primary level, additional complexity and

challenge was often about being able to use cooking

equipment, such as peelers, graters and sharp knives.

Most primary pupils reported using this equipment

at home, and were frustrated at not being given

we are older and we have our own houses and things, we

need to learn how to cook to live so we need to be taught

more cooking so we feel more comfortable” (Y6 pupil).

At secondary level, pupils felt that they would like to

both prepare more complex dishes and learn in more

depth about other aspects of the food curriculum, for

example the nutritional properties of dierent foods,

and which foods to eat when, to prevent hunger, and

diet, and when to eat the correct foods and when it’s

cook for themselves at university and some were

thinking even further ahead “If you were pregnant,

when it comes to it, knowing what you need to make

sure the baby’s healthy, but if I didn’t took this [catering

When thinking about the curriculum gaps and

challenges discussed above, it is important to

consider the context in which food education is

being delivered and the resources available for

curriculum delivery (time, budget, facilities and

skills). Food teachers and senior leaders described a

Over two thirds of food teachers and senior leaders

in primary and secondary school said that time was

a fairly or signicant challenge to delivering high

quality food education.

Only a quarter of primary teachers agreed there is

sucient time allocated in the timetable to deliver

all of the knowledge and skills identied in the

national curriculum for Cooking and Nutrition.

However, 44% of primary teachers said that the time

allocated to food education had increased over the

deliver all of the knowledge and skills identied in

the national curriculum for Cooking and Nutrition.

46% of secondary teachers reported that time had

GCSE] I wouldn’t know what you’d even need when

of their family.

* For more detailed discussion of the role of aspirations in developing pupil capabilities see Hart, C.S. (2012) Aspirations, Education and Social

Justice - Applying Sen and Bourdieu (London, Bloomsbury).

4.3.10 Pupils’ aspirations* for their food education

are not being met

4.3.11 Teachers are constrained in their delivery

of food education by a lack of time, budget and

resources and limited opportunities for continuing

increased over the last three years, and 44% reported

and constraining” (secondary teacher).

ii) Budget

Nearly three quarters of primary and secondary

senior leaders and three in ve primary and

secondary teachers said that budget was a challenge

to delivering high quality food education.

Less than one in three primary teachers said that

they have sucient budget to deliver all of the

knowledge and skills identied in the Cooking and

Nutrition national curriculum. 36% of primary

Only two in ve secondary teachers said that they

have sucient budget to deliver all of the knowledge

and skills identied in the Cooking and Nutrition

national curriculum.ey raised concerns over being

unable to replace broken equipment, improve unsafe

their pupils. A number of teachers reported spending

their own money to buy ingredients, including for

pupils who were unable to aord them. 65% of

secondary teachers reported that their budget had

Primary Teachers Secondary Teachers

8%

9%

4%

n=790

iv) Teaching expertise and Continuing Professional

and supported learning across the wider curriculum

How much of a challenge is sta

training and experience to delivering

high quality food education?

Most sta in our school have

received CPD in the last three

years to enable them to deliver

food education and to enhance

our understanding of a good food

culture

food education at Key Stages 3 and 4 and around

in other areas, but had been asked to teach food

Sta training and experience was highlighted as a

At primary level this is worrying given that most

teachers would be delivering at least some elements

5% 24% 28% 30% 12%

27% 25% 19% 14% 16%

Somewhat challenging

4.4.4 In some schools, pupils are rarely exposed to

positive and frequently exposed to negative food

social environment health-promoting?), motivation

(does interaction with others shape their values and

aspirations?) and behaviours (what they ultimately

choose to do). We found that food and nutrition

as part of a whole school approach to food, but in

other cases, particularly in secondary schools, are

entirely lacking, inconsistent or poorly executed.

i) A lack of visual cues

In some primary schools, good use was made of

classroom, although they did report frequent adverts

for cake sales as part of fundraising.

ii) Sta rarely eat with pupils or talk about food

A focal part of the school day is lunchtime, this

is an opportunity for school sta to support and

guide the choices of pupils, both in the foods they

eat and the social and cultural aspects of eating

as one senior leader said ‘Eating food is a time we

sit and share together’. Despite this recognition,

Our SLT takes regular

senior leaders reported that sta eat with pupils in

only about a third of primary schools and around

Monitoring and compliance with School Food Standards

4.4.5 e culture of fundraising, reward and

Secondary

15%

Disagree

secondary school they told us that whole forms

would be rewarded with doughnuts if they achieved

100% attendance in a month. School sta are aware

that their reward and celebration practices contradict

healthy eating practices “We’ve been known to provide

healthy practice, but most also see that the use of treats

is acceptable, for example at Christmas, for pupils’

birthdays and so on.” Some schools actively address

this issue through the provision of healthy foods

at celebrations.

Teachers reporting their

school rewards include

biscuits, buns, cakes or

sweet items.

Parental opinion on how

term or less

Net: Never Net: Never

53%

Agree

Secondary

ii) Fundraising

85% of primary and 86% of secondary school food

organised involved cakes and sweets “We had loads

of stalls in the hall, we had cupcakes and sweets” (Year

7 pupil). Secondary pupils reported how posters for

bake sales were displayed across their school “It’s

advertised around the school, posters and stu, and that

denitely makes you want to go and buy one, they’re

always up, and they’re mentioned in assemblies and form

time.” (Year 10 pupil)

Senior leaders sometimes questioned the wisdom of

pupils’ purchasing choices during fundraising events,

buy sweets because it’s for charity…I felt encouraged to

buy it, because it’s for charity and it’s cheaper” (Year 7

pupil). Another child talked about how the school’s

nancial needs were encouraging pupils to eat sweet

foods at fundraising events “In my old primary school

they did a chocolate tombola… every kid would go 3 or

4 times. e school say they want their children to be

healthy, but they want the money from that, like there’s

two sides to it.” (Year 7 pupil).

Foods high in salt, fat and sugar as part of school celebrations

42%

Disagree

Primary