Schools

Wellbeing through Food Awareness

The goal of the Candodo School Programme is to deliver increased food awareness to enable children to make better choices and nudge healthier habits whilst learning key aspects of the National Curriculum.

The Candodo School Programme featuring The Gut Bug Challenge is a fun and engaging way to teach children essential life skills around the topic of Food and Nutrition. Using the colourful characters introduced as Phyto Friends children can start to learn about the special Phyto Powers that these foods have, and the affect on their health, and the challenges around eating too much processed food.

Lesson Content

The Candodo School Programme comes with a complete set of lesson content with a progression of skills and knowledge. Lesson content is ideally delivered through either Science or PSHE timetabled classes or can be included as part of a school themed project.

Each lesson builds up knowledge in three important areas.

The Microbiome : understanding its role and impact of bacteria on our health
Eat The Rainbow : an easy to understand way to incorporate more diversity into what we eat
Ultra Processed Food (UPF's) : a discussion on the impact of UPF's on health and how to nudge to healthier habits

The lesson content is reinforced by pupils continuing The Gut Bug Challenge at home, and tracking the food they eat by continuing to record their progress on the tracking sheets provided in class. At the end of the project the children are encouraged to consider My Food Journey, a reflection on making better choices during the challenge and a final taste activity.

Life Changing

The programme introduces making better choices between eating real foods v ultra-processed foods and enjoying UPS's as treats.
Has latest thinking on Gut Microbiome and links to overall health.
Compliments Science curriculum with age related content
Positions the battle in context of internal health

Engaging

Uses child friendly characterisation with Phyto Friends and the Good and Bad Gut Bugs
Helps children question food contents with the Food Detective activities
The Gut Bug Challenge keeps the children engaged with the lesson content to apply in school and at home

Why is Gut Health So Important?

Your gut microbiome influences your overall health, both your physical and mental health. It controls your energy levels, mood, concentration, food cravings and large parts of your immune system, as well as being responsible for communications with your brain via the Gut -Brain axis. Excess sugar encourages Gut Dysbiosis, an imbalance in good and bad gut bugs in favour of the bad ones, and also promotes inflammation, which is a precursor to many diseases. For a healthy gut microbiome, eating a variety of natural foods rich in dietary fibre, such as vegetables, fruits and wholegrains is particularly important. Source: https://www.fabresearch.org/

Curriculum Mapping

The Candodo School Programme specifically maps to the Science curriculum in a number of key areas, but also links to aspects of food and nutrition covered in Design and Technology and also PSHE.

Key Stage 2 Programme of Study : Working Scientifically

The Candodo School Programme incorporating The Gut Bug Challenge through participation and tracking also assists children in the Key Stage 2 Programme of Study objectives to Work Scientifically.

• Gathering, recording, classifying and presenting data
• Recording findings using simple scientific language
• Reporting on findings from enquiries
• Using results to draw simple conclusions
• Using straightforward scientific evidence to answer questions or to support their findings

To learn more about the Candodo School Programme just open the document at the of the page to understand about the areas covered and be able to share with your teams.

Feedback

"From the moment the children received their Battle Boards and components, they were excited to start! I think that the programme takes a great perspective on not focusing on the outside of the body, but on feeling healthy on the inside. I feel that this is a very sensitive way to address eating habits" Head of PSHE.

"The child-friendly resources (with lots of colour and images) very much enticed the children into the learning. The children very much enjoyed the facts they discovered from the lesson content and difficult scientific language was explained well and could be memorised easily with the clever play on words e,g. microbihome." PSHE Teacher

"I very quickly saw habits changing, such as healthier snacks and more variety of snacks being brought in to school. I equally saw increased concentration amongst the children during the school day. The children were enjoying eating a variety of whole foods, remembering which colours benefited each part of the body." Year 4 Teacher

Expected Results

Not only will introducing The Candodo School Programme into your school help to deliver important educational content from the National Curriculum in a fun and engaging manner, it is expected that the school and its pupils will through the development of healthy eating habits achieve some of the following results

reduced number of absences due to sickness - maximising the opportunity to learn
increased focus of pupils and aptitude for learning

Additional Learning Resources

In addition to The Gut Bug Challenge and the lesson content, schools may consider also ordering a number of Phyte Cards to help children understand the relative strengths of different foods. Depending on budgets available this could be a pack per class, table or child.

"The children also very much enjoyed the Phyte Cards and would ask to play with them at any opportunity - they particularly enjoyed reading the 'Poo Power' value of each card!" - Teacher Comment

PHYTE CARDS

Let's Get Started

If you are responsible for the delivery of KS2 Science, Healthy Schools Programme or the PSHE curriculum or simply looking to incorporate better food education into your school, then please get in contact with us. We would love to discuss the best option for your school to find a fun and engaging way to teach children the value of Food and Nutrition.

If you would like to receive more details of how the Candodo School Programme can be rolled out in your school just fill out the contact form below.

Food Awareness