JUST in time for spring, the students St John’s Junior School have been granted $2000 to establish a kitchen garden.
The grant came from the Live Life Well @ School program, which is a joint initiative between the NSW Department of Education and Communities and NSW Ministry of Health that aims to get more students, more active, more often, as well as improving students’ eating habits.
The submission from St John’s teaching staff was led by Naomi Bassett and required the school to put forward an extensive management plan detailing how the school would encourage the students to live a healthy life at school.
The winning submission outlined how the school would monitor the childrens’ fundamental movement skills throughout their primary school years.
It also included gardening and outdoor activities, including healthy food tips in the school newsletter, encouraging crunch and sip in every classroom, drink bottles on every desk, and providing resources to the school’s food committee to ensure healthy dining hall food was a priority.
New England Girls School principal Clive Loga, who also oversees St John’s, is a strong advocate of promoting healthy lifestyles.
“According to the Schools Physical Activity and Nutrition Survey in 2010, 22.8 per cent of children in NSW are either overweight or obese,” Mr Logan said.
“Programs such as these are a fantastic step in the right direction in an effort to decreasing this massive number by helping to create a healthy school environment and engaging the community in developing food awareness.”
