DairyCo

Development of Schools and Education Programme

Published 2 August 10

DairyCo (formerly the Milk Development Council) is a non commercial, not for profit organisation currently supporting schools with free resources and advice on milk provision within schools through its School Milk Project. Following a full review of activities and additional research commissioned with practising teachers, DairyCo will be developing and relaunching its Schools and Education programme in the 2011 new academic year.

This exciting new strategy for activity in schools will see us use our farmer-paid levy funds enhance our existing investment in the Food a Fact of Life programme www.foodafactoflife.org.uk. This web based education resource promotes all food groups from production through to consumption providing teachers with curriculum-relevant information in a variety of formats. It was developed in 2005 by the British Nutrition Foundation with support from various levy boards and since then has gone from strength to strength. Our plans include upgrading the existing FFL website to build upon and extend its reach, penetration and success.

Our strategy review has resulted in some changes. Robust research, with practising teachers, identified how important it is that education resources meet the changing communications needs of teachers and the curriculum. We concluded that we need to be working much closer with other education organisations that also provide support to schools and their network groups. This will allow us to be more targeted in our approach than our existing School Milk Project activity.

DairyCo will continue to offer free resources and advice to LA's about providing or increasing milk in their schools. This will be done via the existing helpline 0870 241 2693 and school milk website www.schoolmilk.co.uk. We will also continue to support Out of The Classroom activity by facilitating visits to farms, through increasing our support for existing farming organisations offering educational activities.

Our new Schools and Education Programme will be rolled out during the forthcoming academic year and will be keeping all LAs and relevant schools network groups updated throughout.

In the meantime, if you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact us on 0870 241 2693 or email diane.cannon@dairyco.org.uk