Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve nutrition education in schools.

The government wants to support the health and wellbeing of everyone. The department understands the importance of education in delivering this aim and the department is supporting schools in a number of ways to provide high quality nutrition education for their students.

Nutrition is a discrete strand of the national curriculum for Design and Technology (D&T). This was introduced as part of the 2014 D&T curriculum and is compulsory for key stages 1 to 3. The curriculum aims to teach children how to cook and how to apply the principles of healthy eating and nutrition. It recognises that cooking is an important life skill that will help children to feed themselves and others healthy and affordable food.

A food preparation and nutrition GCSE was introduced in September 2016. It requires pupils to understand and apply the principles of food science, nutrition and healthy eating when preparing and cooking food.

The importance of nutrition is also included in the science curriculum for both primary and secondary schools. Nutrition through healthy eating is covered through topics relating to nutrition and digestion, which cover the content of a healthy diet and the impact of diet on how the body functions.

The statutory guidance for Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education, and Health Education includes content on the importance of daily exercise, good nutrition and the risks associated with an inactive lifestyle, including obesity.

Throughout the guidance, there is an emphasis on empowering young people to make choices and adopt lifestyles that will increase their chance of living happy and healthy lives to support the agenda on tackling obesity. To support teachers to deliver the healthy eating topic, the department has developed a teacher training module which can be accessed at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/teaching-about-relationships-sex-and-health#train-teachers-on-relationships-sex-and-health-education.

The government also supports the provision of nutritious food in schools, which ensures pupils are well nourished, develop healthy eating habits and can concentrate and learn.

The standards for school food are set out in the Requirements for School Food Regulations 2014. The School Food Standards are part of the government’s drive to help children adopt healthy eating habits from a young age. The department provides a number of resources for schools, which are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-food-standards-resources-for-schools.

The School Fruit and Vegetables Scheme also provides over 2.2 million children in reception and key stage 1 with a portion of fresh fruit or vegetables each day at school. Schools are encouraged to use it as an opportunity to educate children and to assist a healthy, balanced diet.

The Oak National Academy will be providing a fully resourced curriculum for key stages 1 to 3 for food and nutrition. This will align with the national curriculum and Oak’s guiding principles, which focus on the knowledge and skills specific to food and nutrition.

Oak have assured the department that pupils will be able to cook more than six savoury dishes by the end of key stage three by following their food curriculum.