DairyCo

Teacher resources

Published 25 November 11

Dairy...a fact of life!

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 Symes, 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 also 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 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 and now provides resources for pre-school through to secondary.

Use of the FFL website has grown enormously, with annual visitor numbers in excess of 1 million with 2.5 million downloads it is clearly making a significant contribution to food production and nutrition teaching in the UK. Our strategy sees DairyCo building on our existing investment in the Food a Fact of Life programme by developing new resources for Primary and Secondary schools.

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 new resources.

The new DairyCo 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.

The European Union

This is a one-stop resource for a wide range of teaching material about Europe. The material has been produced by various EU institutions and other government and non-government bodies in order to help young people learn about the European Union and its policies.

The website, brochures, books, maps and posters explain what the EU is and what it does. They address many of the questions and challenges facing society today, for example, what can we do to protect our environment?

Whether you're looking for inspiration for your lessons or concrete information on European history, citizenship, or something as specific as reducing individual energy consumption, you should find something useful tailored to the age-group of your students. For more information click here

• Bones For Life - National Osteoporosis Society
  The National Osteoporosis Society has launched a new educational website and FREE Resource Pack for schools.
  The National Osteoporosis Societ's  www.bones4life.org is engaging educational website aimed at improving children's awareness of the importance of good bone health. They are also offering primary schools the chance to order a Resource Pack that will give them all they need to organise a 'Bone Healthy Week'. The packs can be ordered through the web site at www.bones4life.org/pack