If you learn about healthy and sustainable food at school, you will benefit from it throughout your life. Children and young people who know more about their food and have greater food skills are more likely to develop eating habits that contribute to their own health and that of the environment.

By getting started with food education in multiple lessons and projects, it becomes a consistent thread throughout students' school lives. Just as with other subjects, educational activities about food only really work well when they are implemented structurally.

With structural food education, every child gets the opportunity to develop the essential food skills they need, regardless of their caregivers' socioeconomic position.

How can you do this?

Get started with the 6 steps described below. We provide explanations and tips for each step. Every school is different. Choose the approach that suits your school.

Step 1: Agree together to commit to food education

For food education to succeed, it needs to be broadly supported by the teachers (in your department) and the management of your school. So make sure it becomes their plan too.

Tips:

  • Explain why you think it is important to get started with food education at your school and how it aligns with the school's core objectives and vision. Examples of core objectives that food education can support in the lower years of secondary education are 29, 30, 31, 34, 35 and 42.
  • Ask colleagues what reasons they have for implementing food education at school. Having your own reason is generally a stronger means of persuasion than being given a reason.
  • Take inspiration from the video below. In it, teachers explain why they teach about food, and students share what they think of it.

Step 2: Determine what you want to do about food education

Work together to map out what you may already be doing and what you would like to do (more) in terms of food education. You can invite a Healthy School adviser from the municipal health service (GGD) to help you think things through.

Tips:

  • Choose an existing and effective teaching package. For example, get started with the free online teaching package Weet wat je eet or choose another high-quality teaching package from the CGL database.
  • (If desired,) supplement this programme with experiential activities, such as gardening, cooking, an excursion or a visit from an expert or guest teacher in the classroom. The Lekker naar buiten! incentive grant from Jong Leren Eten is available for an introduction to these activities.

Step 3: Make food part of existing lessons

Discuss with colleagues how you can embed the selected educational activities about food into existing lessons. For example, how do they connect with the topics covered in biology (digestion), care (cooking), Care & Welfare, Physical Education and tutor lessons?

Tip:

  • The teaching package Weet wat je eet connects with topics such as digestion, sustainability and cooking.

Step 4: Choose times to give extra attention to food

Discuss with your colleagues which times of year are suitable for giving extra attention to food. Think of project weeks and theme days, such as sports days, Eid al-Fitr, Christmas and Easter. Educational activities could possibly be linked to these, such as cooking or lessons about food. Also consider which themes you cover that could be linked to food education. For example, the start of the new year, the seasons, waste and wastage.

Tips:

  • See whether you can connect with existing food-related activities that are organised, such as (cafeteria) challenges, hackathons or Waste-Free Week.
  • See whether you can also involve families at home, for example by cooking with or for parents and sharing recipes.

Step 5: Formalise your attention to food education

Once you have determined how you are going to shape your food education, formalise your commitment to it.

Tips:

  • Include the educational activities about food in the school policy and provide an explanation. Who is responsible for them and in which school years do they take place?
  • Include in the annual plan which food-related educational activities you will carry out during the school year.
  • Include the educational activities about food in the curriculum or timetable for the subject.

Step 6: Share successes and evaluate

Share your successes (for example on social media or in newsletters to parents) and evaluate together what is going well and how you could further improve food education at school.

Healthy School approach

If, as a school, you would like to pay more attention to the theme of food, you can get started with the Healthy School approach. The Healthy School approach helps you pay attention to the pillars of education, policy, environment and identification in a planned and structured way.