DairyCo

Dairy....a fact of life!

Published 31 January 11

Making sure that children understand the facts about dairy farming and milk production, as well as the benefits of eating a healthy balanced diet is a serious challenge. Diane Cannon, schools and education manager, explains how DairyCo is finding new and innovative ways to get the right messages across.

Our research with teachers has helped us to identify how important it is that education resources meet the changing needs of teachers and the curriculum. The research highlighted the recognition, credibility and regular usage of the Food - a fact of life (FFL) education programme within schools.  FFL provides teachers and children with up-to-date, accurate and curriculum relevant resources about food and farming, healthy eating and cooking.

The Food - a fact of life web based education resource www.foodafactoflife.org.uk promotes all food groups from production through to consumption providing teachers with curriculum relevant information. It was developed in 2005 by the British Nutrition Foundation with support from DairyCo and all other AHDB sectors and has gone from strength to strength.

Use of the FFL website has grown enormously, with annual visitor numbers of 194,517 at its start growing to 994,281 visitors a year now, and it is clearly making a significant contribution to food production and nutrition teaching in the UK. Our new strategy sees DairyCo building on our existing investment in the Food a Fact of Life programme.

We have also completed further research with children of school age, and through this we have been able to find out children's current level of understanding and views of dairy farming and dairy products so we could take these into consideration when developing the new resources.

The resources have comprehensive curriculum links. The following core requirements have been taken into consideration throughout the development process:

• accuracy and consistency;
• relevancy of content, including key skills;
• flexibility in use and adaptation;
• age/ability specific;
• linked to FSA Core Food Competences;
• availability in different formats, e.g. interactive whiteboard activities, worksheets, videos, PowerPoint presentations;
• digital, rather than paper-based;
• responsive to the pupil voice;
• cross-curricular, promoting inter-disciplinary learning.

What is now available for schools?

For primary schools:

A series of six learning journeys with Alisha, Jordan, Nicola and Ronnie. The stories engage children with farming and food production, healthy eating and cooking. Milk and dairy production is specifically highlighted in a number of the stories.

• All six journeys are cross curricular in context
• Each journey features three main themes - Food and farming, healthy eating and cooking
• All materials in the journey are flexible and could be used to teach numeracy or literacy
• The resources are modern and highly visual, colourful and vibrant.

For secondary schools:

 A series of five case studies focusing on the following key areas of:

• Animal health and welfare/environment/sustainability/diversity of farming systems across GB and milk production
• Adaptable worksheets and presentations, interactive whiteboard activities and video clips are also available
• In addition, there are two interactive differentiated tutorials to support the food and farming case studies to engage young people in schools

DairyCo will also continue to offer a service to schools and Local Authorities about providing or increasing milk provision in schools. Free resources and advice will be given via the existing helpline 0870 241 2693 and our website www.schoolmilk.co.uk.