School Food Lessons from my first Pedagoo!

So over the weekend, I had the pleasure of spending some time at “Pedagoo Hampshire” a learning and development event for teachers.

And no, I wasn’t lost! And yes I know I’m not a teacher – but at Eagle we take our role of Food and Wellbeing Educators really seriously and so want to ensure we are doing all we can to be effective as we support schools in that area.

It was my first Pedagoo and yet I’ve already signed up to my next one!

I took so much away from the event focused on supporting teachers (and indeed people) to improve, grow and develop and was so fascinated about how it could be applied to improving and supporting the area of school food. I discovered there were many application and my top 5 were:

1. The Look of “Children First”

It goes without saying in schools that children should come first…but does it? And what does that look like?

I felt so fortunate to spend time with people so passionate about the children. Attendees were reminded that this means ensuring they look after themselves to be able to give the best to the children.

Those in the kitchen are too committed to the children too… – we hear it all the time. But what does that look like?

We see them work so hard each day to go a great job-  and yet meals that make it to the plate can be anything but, even in amazing schools, doing fantastic things!

Why the disconnect?

At a minimum, children should be given food that looks good, tastes good and does them good – served with a smile and in a welcoming environment… if we were to put that in a list how many meals would be able to tick all that list?

2. The Focus on Ongoing Learning, Growth and Development

The focus on continuing professional development in teaching something that school food could really get to grips with.

I loved the fact that this was a Saturday morning, with hundreds of teachers (and a few non teachers like me) all in a room wanting to learn and grow and improve their own practice.

We shared ideas, we shared books, we shared laughs, and we shared challenges.

But no-one left without learning, thinking differently or re-evaluating.

This has to be encouraged across schools, and especially of the kitchen staff if we are to continue to see the growth so important to the lives of young people. If we’re going to help them grow, we too must constantly be doing the same!

3. Trying something New

We want the children to try new dishes, broaden their palettes and learn about nutrition – and yet the adults are so reluctant to do the same.

The number of ‘yucks’ we see adults giving to new dishes…

The number of ‘It won’t work’s we hear to ideas that we know work elsewhere, but have never even been tried by them.

It’s so inspiring to see the focus on embracing new ideas to try to enhance learning, wellbeing and experiences, it’s definitely a great source of inspiration for things that we’re going to work on implementing with our partner schools. There’s not always a sticker in it – but there are some incredible things to be gained from things yet untested.

4. Hero Making

Our Keynote speaker was quoted as saying “Real Leaders are not Heroes, they are Hero-makers” – and that's really relevant to the school food team.

When it comes to leading to help others flourish the catering team are front and centre of this practice in supporting the children.

They may well be the only group in the school that sees each child daily, so they have the chance to get to know them, help them make choices, check in with their day.

Yes, time is short. Yes, the pressure is on… but as a workshop leader highlighted so powerfully “It’s those micro-moments (things that happen in a split second) that make all the difference”.

5. Two-Way R.E.S.P.E.C.T

It was really great to see so many incredible practionners and people, not only receive the respect and admiration of their colleagues, but give it too.

There were no egos.

No feelings of being threatened or daunted by others doing a great job in their roles – and the event and experience was richer for it.

We know that school food works best in schools where the catering teams are respected for the professionals that they are and given the opportunity to interact and integrate with the schools. There is a huge wealth of knowledge, experience and expertise in that kitchen team and they have so much to offer in terms of solving problems across the school (make lessons more interesting, sorting out persistent lateness, budgetary challenges). Like Ms Franklin reminds us “Just a lil’ bit” – can go a long, long way!

Getting a budget line for food ingredients for the food tech lessons – is a great way to show respect for the role food has in building futures (for example! I know there’ll be one for science equipment!). Another is integrating food to become yet another tool for learning that the school leadership team can fully use.

I discovered so much because I went there open to learning- I know that schools can do the same when they’re open to using food in new and innovative ways.

Thanks to @MartynReah and the team for such an incredible day, to everyone that inspired me to think differently that day. We’ll keep applying what we learnt at the Pedagoo in the days to come. 

Yinka Ewuola is a Director of Eagle Solutions Services and leads Team Eagle’s Fresher Files Blog Team

Eagle Solutions Services “Supports Excellent Education and Nutrition today, for a better tomorrow”

The Fresher Files is Team Eagle’s Blog which promotes our “Altogether Different Approach to Food”