The Healthy Eating Hub at North Ainslie
In 2013 a group of parents were successful in applying for an ACT Health Promotion grant to kick start 'The NAPS Healthy Eating Hub (HEHub), Vegetable Garden and No-Waste Chook Pen Project '("Healthy Eating Hub Project"). The goal was to promote sustainable practices and improve the health and wellbeing of children at North Ainslie Primary School through:
- growing
- preparing
- serving, and
- eating healthy food.
The garden, together with the canteen, make up part of the Healthy Eating Hub, with the chicken coop located in the preschool grounds at North Ainslie.
How does the HEHub work?
The school garden and canteen:
- connect students, teachers and the community through activities such as:
- the Garden Club during recess and lunch (Tuesday to Thursday)
- Enrichment- multi age groups from K-6 participate throughout the year in the garden and cooking lessons, including learning kitchen safety skills
- leadership opportunities for senior students to volunteer and be involved in the planning, cooking and selling of food in the canteen with produce grown from the garden
- offer an alternate outdoor space for learning
- encourage students to try new foods and develop new relationships
- improve nutrition, and
- increase physical activity.
Healthy Eating and Drinking Curriculum
We are an "ACT Fresh Tastes" pilot school and follow the North Ainslie Healthy Eating and Drinking Guidelines and ACT Public School Food and Drink Policy (2015). Curriculum content is derived from the Food and Me Nutrition Education Curriculum, an initiative of the ACT Government and Fresh Tastes, which is linked to the Australian Curriculum: Health and Physical education. We teach this content through HEHuB activities and our units of inquiry. These units include Waste, taught in kindergarten, and Health and Wellbeing, taught in years 3/4. The curriculum is underpinned by the Traffic light system, a food categorisation system which teaches children and adults about making healthy choices when eating and drinking.
Green
- Foods and drinks are from the five good groups
- Minimally processed
- Very nutritious
Amber
- Foods and drinks are processed from the five good groups
- More processes than green foods and drinks
- Less nutritious
Red
- Foods and drinks are very processed
- Contain added sugar, fat and salt
- Not nutritious
To read more about Our Healthy Eating Hub, please click here.
