FSA Wales: Aliddon pantomime and healthy eating workshops

The challenge

The Food Standards Agency Wales (FSA Wales) aims to encourage children to:

  • eat a healthy balanced diet that meets their energy needs
  • be aware of essential food hygiene messages.

FSA work in schools supports the Welsh curriculum and encourages schools in adopting a whole-school approach to food and nutrition.

The FSA has a resource trailer, through which key food safety and healthy eating messages are delivered via interactive games and pantomimes. The agency has also developed a teacher pack to support the trailer and reinforce key messages.

The purpose of this project is to complement the resource trailer and teacher pack with a smaller mobile resource from which the FSA's pantomime, Aliddon, and interactive workshops can be delivered. This enables a wider reach of primary schools in Wales, including more difficult-to-access schools.

Our approach

In preparation, all of the EdComs Live team took part in thorough practical and online food-nutrition and food-safety training.

EdComs then designed two interactive workshops to run alongside the pantomime. One workshop has been devised for Foundation phase students aged 5 to 7, the other for Key Stage 2 students aged 7 to 11.

The pantomime and workshops will be delivered over nine weeks during the 2009–10 academic year. EdComs has also been responsible for recruiting the 45 primary schools at which the activities will be delivered.

The pantomime and workshops are available to schools in Welsh and English languages and are delivered by bilingual actors. All the resources encourage children to eat a healthy balanced diet, and make them aware of essential food hygiene messages.

The workshop activities are auditory, visual and kinaesthetic and place a strong emphasis on learning by doing. In order to create a colourful pantomime set, costumes and props, EdComs has worked with well-established designers.

Outcomes

An initial evaluation undertaken by EdComs of the first three weeks of delivery in September 2009 was very positive.

Teachers commented on the resources being fun, well-paced and engaging, as well as linking to the curriculum appropriately. They also appreciated the opportunity to have a pantomime and workshops delivered in Welsh.

The students clearly enjoyed the pantomime format and responded enthusiastically to all the workshop activities.