Primary food lead online essentials pack

What is this pack?

The Primary food lead essentials pack is a collection of resources and support curated from the Food - a fact of life website, designed to support high quality food teaching across the primary school age-phases.

Who is it for?

This pack is intended for those who lead, coordinate or have responsibility for food teaching across the whole of primary school. However, anyone teaching food in primary will be able to find useful advice and resources in this online pack.

What's in the pack?

This pack includes a variety of information, resources and guidance to support planning and teaching food across the primary school. The pack is divided into three key areas:

• planning
• good practice, and 
• training.

Food curriculum roadmaps

Start your planning with the Food Curriculum Roadmaps. The Food Curriculum Roadmaps provide a visual journey of what pupils from age 3 to 16 years need to know about food, covering  healthy eating, cooking and where food comes from.

The Roadmaps show progression through ‘Key facts’, statements of what will be taught and learnt, and are the structure upon which the Food - a fact of life website resources are built.

Interactive versions of the Roadmaps allow easy access to specific lessons and resources, simply by clicking on the desired Key fact. The printed versions can be displayed in school to show pupils their food learning journey, as well as demonstrating to those visiting the classroom the breadth of what is taught in food lessons.

Food teaching progression chart

The Food teaching progression chart outlines progression across food related themes specifically for primary pupils aged 5-11 years, including healthy eating, hygiene and safety, ingredients, food skills, and how food is produced.
 
The Food teaching progression chart can be part of your school planning file to demonstrate how food teaching progresses across your school. Share the framework with colleagues so they can see how what they teach fits into the overall food teaching in school, and inspire them to supplement their teaching with additional ideas.

Primary food projects

The Primary food projects are six food projects for ages 5-11 years. They are built on the Food teaching progression chart (above) to ensure a progressive approach to teaching and learning about healthy eating, cooking and where food comes from, as pupils advance through their primary school years.

There are six projects:

• Bring on breakfast (5-6 years)
• Party time (6-7 years)
• Get baking (7-8 years)
• Lovely lunch (8-9 years)
• Serve a salad (9-10 years)
• Grab and go (10-11 years)

Each project includes an overview, objectives, curriculum links, six lesson plans and signposting to supporting resources such as, worksheets, recipes and presentations. 

These are comprehensive units of work (each lasting around 6 weeks) that deliver the food curriculum progressively across primary school. Share the projects as appropriate with colleagues teaching different age groups in your school. The projects can be used as they are or adapted to suit your pupils and teaching themes. 

Activity packs

To enhance food lessons in primary, a selection of food-themed activity packs are available. The packs support other curriculum area such as history and science and different festivals, occasions and commodities.

• Victorians
• Space
• Harvest festival
• Fibre February
• Bread

Recipes

The Recipe area of the Food - a fact of life website has a selection of recipes which support teaching and learning about a range of ingredients, food skills and cooking techniques. You can search through over 400 recipes by skill, age or ingredient to find the perfect recipes for your lessons! 

Engaging parents/carers

Visit the Parental engagement area on the Food - a fact of life website to find resources to help you involve parents/carers in their child's food education. Resources include information sheets, details on running workshops for parents/carers, food diaries and charts on topics such as breakfast, healthier lunchboxes and hydration. 

Whole school food policy

If you are leading food in your primary school, you may also be responsible for the whole school food policy. Whether you are or not, you will need to make sure that what is being taught in your school food curriculum, aligns with the whole school food policy.  Find, and make sure you are familiar with, your whole school food policy, or take a look at our support to help you create one. 

Characteristics of good practice in teaching pupils in primary school

The Characteristics of good practice document outlines what ‘good’ looks like in relation to teaching food in UK primary schools. It sets out a series of characteristics of good practice and shows how the they can be realised through bulleted lists of actions to take and teacher case studies.

There is also a version specifically for pupils with additional needs, Characteristics of good practice in teaching pupils with additional needs.

These documents can be used to audit and develop food teaching practice in your school.

The contents of the Characteristics of good practice documents, for both primary and additional needs, can be explore through the online course versions. These work well as a whole staff training tool for staff meetings or on inset days, when they can be completed and discussed by module.

Online courses:

• Characteristics of good practice in teaching primary food and nutrition
• Characteristics of good practice in teaching pupils with additional needs

Guidelines for producers and users of school education resources about food

If you are creating your own food teaching resources, or using resources from others, it’s important to check that these are delivering accurate, up to date and evidence-based messages.

The Guidelines for producers and users of school education resources about food is a set of voluntary guidelines which can be adopted as part of a good practice approach by those that produce and use education resources for schools about food throughout the UK. Check the food teaching resources you use against the guidelines.

Good food hygiene and safety practices

Food hygiene and safety can be a barrier to teaching practical food lessons in primary schools. Especially as most primary school teachers will be delivering food lessons in their usual classroom, rather than a dedicated food room. Visit the primary Good food hygiene and safety practices area of the Food - a fact of life website for guidance on managing hygiene and safety in the classroom, including setting up for practical activities, teaching food skills safely and running tasting sessions.

Have you heard of CLEAPSS?

You are probably a member! Most schools in England, Wales and Northern Ireland have membership directly, or via their local authority. CLEAPSS provides model risk assessments and bespoke expert advice through a helpline, courses, publications and website. Contact CLEAPSS to find out if you are a member.

Webinars, online courses and conferences

Food - a fact of life offers a wealth of free training for teachers including webinars, online courses and conferences. All our training events are posted on this page.

You can take a look at past recordings of our webinars here.

To get you started, here are a couple of our favourite primary focused webinars!

• Tackling food waste
  Primary school headteacher, Dr Jason O'Rourke, talks about how to tackle food waste across the school day.
• Knife skills workshop
  An interactive food skills session demonstrating key knife skills for primary settings.

Teaching primary food and nutrition professional development programme

Run by the British Nutrition Foundation, the Teaching Primary Food and Nutrition programme is a free self-directed CPD programme to build confidence and competence in teaching food in primary. The programme is available to primary teachers, trainees and teaching assistants – anyone teaching food lessons in primary.  It is designed to support high quality food and nutrition lessons, and a whole school approach to food.

A great way to gather evidence to support career progression and you can do as much or as little as you like, at times to suit you.

Take a look at these slides to find out more and register here.

National events

Engaging with national food-related events can broaden and enhance your primary school food curriculum. Take a look at what’s coming up: 

• Open Farm Sunday, 8 June 2025 
• British Nutrition Foundation’s Healthy Eating Week, 9-13 June 2025 TBC

Keep up to date

For all the latest news about the Food - a fact of life resources and events, sign up for our monthly newsletter and follow us on social media @Foodafactoflife