Wesley Primary School

A simple and effective food programme put in place at Wesley Primary School is improving the eating habits of pupils, parents and the wider school community.

With the launch of their new lunch box policy, Wesley Primary now asks children to bring only healthy lunches to school, removing unhealthy packaged food until the school day is over.

Children also receive daily reminders about healthy eating over the school’s loud speaker before lunch and play-time and always have access to healthy fruit snacks from classroom fruit buckets.

Ana Tonga, programme coordinator at Wesley Primary, said that while it took time for the children to come round to the new way of eating, they now love it.

And it’s motivating not only the children but their parents too.

“With so many parents keen to learn more about healthy eating, we decided to hold a night cooking class, it was so popular that we didn’t have enough space for all the parents.

“We have now renovated the school hall to include a kitchen for teaching parents how to cook healthy, economical meals for their families.

“The amount of junk food coming to school is decreasing and the children are bringing healthy home-made lunches. They now have longer attention spans, are more settled and attendance is up.

“The fruit bucket is always empty by the end of the day.”

Healthy lunch boxes all the go at Wesley