Post lockdown health and wellbeing workshops

After returning to school from the school closure during lockdown, we have noticed an increase in childhood obesity and a drop in children’s overall fitness levels. Children’s dental hygiene is another area that needs prioritising and includes not only a lack of adequate brushing but a need to reduce sugary treats which we feel may have increased over the recent lockdowns. We know that children with obesity are more prone to low self esteem and can struggle with their mental health. This can lead to lower class participation and reduced educational performance. The children have already missed a significant amount of face-to-face learning and so we must give them the best possible opportunity to learn when they are in school. 

What we eat doesn't just affect our physical health, it can also affect our mental health and wellbeing. Eating well – which means having a balanced diet full of vegetables and nutrients – can improve your sense of wellbeing and your mood. This will in turn optimize the children’s focus, learning and overall school experience. 

We have noticed that there are often limited choices being made at lunch despite the kitchen offering a wide variety of salads and vegetables to the children. In addition to this, packed lunches are not always balanced in terms of the different food groups so there is a need to look at the nutritional value of packed lunch items.

We are proposing that we educate the children and parents on what constitutes a healthy diet as we know that if the changes can be made at home first, they will have a greater impact on the children’s choices. We would like to run healthy eating workshops/cooking classes where parents and children learn about the nutritional value of different foods and how to create balanced meals at home or in their packed lunches. 

Often the children with special educational needs struggle with the texture and taste of different foods. We could run educational workshops for those children’s parents on ways of getting their children to eat a more balanced diet and support parents with their children’s sensory needs around food.

We would also like to run a healthy eating week which could be advertised to the local community i.e. posters in the local library. This would involve whole school activities such as special exercise classes that are interesting and exciting for the children. There could also be classes for the parents and local members of the community, using the school facilities after school hours. In addition to the exercise activities, there could be whole school education on nutritional value in food, how to make good choices, the impact of a healthy diet and lifestyle and some myth busting when it comes to nutritional value in foods. 

We already have many engaged parents i.e. our parent baking group, however we would like support to scale up these initiatives to have a greater impact on the wider community and a new focus on health and wellbeing. We strongly believe that these initiatives will improve the health of the wider community and have long term impacts on their health, happiness and overall well being. 

Thank you for taking the time to read our proposal and we look forward to hearing from you soon.

Kind regards,

Elmhurst Primary School