A Toolbox for Schools
Every pupil in decile 5 schools or below will be given a new ‘tool kit’ from the Nutrition and Physical Activity (NPA) team and the Health Promoting Schools Advisor from the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board.
The new toolbox health initiative was launched recently at Spring Creek School. Arthur Phillips of Public Health says the kit is made up of posters, learning resources, kids recipe book, mousepads, calendars and garden seeds.
Mr Phillips says the kit has been developed through collaboration with agencies who link with schools. He says this has allowed agencies to link their messages into one toolkit and schools will be able to streamline future health planning within classrooms.
“The initiative has a strong emphasis on encouraging children to grow their own vegetables at home for a healthier diet,” he says. “This is supported by information about Kids Edible Gardens in the toolbox.”
Mr Phillips said the tool kit helped enhance what was already being used in schools and were not designed to add more work for teachers.
“The toolbox has visual aids to increase the learning experience for students, which has been designed in a colourful way to attract their attention and interest.”
“Once the school has the kit, they can do what they wish with the resources. The school decides where the posters will go and the school can work through the calendar prompts for future curriculum planning.”
NPA Project Manager, Maria Baxter said the toolbox kit is about bringing together key messages in a fun way throughout the year.
“Through research we found out our community loves bags, so through these bags we are going to get positive messages out in a way that people love – like a walking advertisement.
Maria says each side of the bag has a message and shows the four campaigns already run.
She says due to lack of resources, only fifty percent of the schools will receive the NPA toolbox kit: “Unfortunately we don’t have the resources to boost every school, so we had to focus on decile 5 and below.”
Spring Creek School Principal, Andrew McFarlane helped design the toolbox kit and says it will help his children.
“The kits are about raising the awareness of healthy nutrition and pointing out the importance of physical activity to children,” he says. “I think it’s about informed choices, showing the children what is available to them and letting them make their own decisions about what’s best for them.”
