How we used our nutrition funding

• Pukenui School, Te Kuiti
• Hamilton East School
• Fairfield Kindergarten, Hamilton
  

Pukenui School, Te Kuiti

158 children

Pukenui Primary School was one of five schools to receive funding in the first round of the Nutrition Fund in November 2007.

Their project, led by the student health team, focused on creating an environment that promoted healthy eating with the idea first coming from a desire to provide healthier school lunches. 

With sustainability playing a key role, both senior and junior students worked to build and maintain their own vegetable gardens and will work to keep them productive all year including the winter months. 

The school also purchased student-sized tools so they can become real gardeners and students have proposed recipes for each month of the school year that tie in with the garden theme e.g. quiche was made using vegetables from the garden, with eggs provided by parents. 

Pukenui Primary also developed an area for the junior students to eat their lunches under a shade sail with an emphasis on providing the right conditions to ensure children enjoy the social aspect of food.

Raising student awareness around hand washing and general health and nutrition is another key factor of the primary schools’ project.

Since the introduction of the garden, teachers have seen a change in what students are ordering for lunch with a decrease in pies and an increase in the healthier options. Students are also making better choices for their lunch boxes and sharing their growing knowledge of food with their families.

Hamilton East School

Primary School, 292 children, linked to 20 early childhood education children

Round 2 – six schools, May 2008
Hamilton East School was one of six schools in the second round of the Nutrition Fund to receive funding for their Kool Kids Kitchen project.

Two staff members and a student health team lead the project, aimed at encouraging students, teachers, parents and the wider community to learn lifelong healthy eating habits.

The project clearly demonstrated how the new facility would support the school’s healthy eating philosophy and impact positively on classroom learning.

Kool Kids Kitchen provides a place for students to enjoy learning how to make healthy meals and snacks using modern equipment and cooking appliances. 

Lessons taught in the kitchen focus on a balanced diet and teaching good eating attitudes and behaviours.

The kitchen will also benefit other community groups, including before and after-school care, a Japanese playgroup and a migrant mothers group from Wintec.

Fairfield Kindergarten, Hamilton

Early childhood education centre, 40 children

Fairfield Kindergarten was one of seven schools and two early education centres that received funding from the third round of the Nutrition Fund, September 2008.

The kindergartens’ health project focused on a student garden, named the Marawatea Garden.

The garden was built by the children and for the children to encourage healthy eating. It will help to increase awareness of where food comes from and how plants grow, especially fruit and vegetables.

The students regularly water the plants and seeds as they await the first shoots to appear. Lessons have focused around experiments with plants and seeds. Records of the children’s learning have been kept in portfolios that children share with their parents.

Dental therapists have also visited the school to talk to students about healthy food choices and dental health.