Chartwells, the UK’s leading school and education catering company, has launched the latest instalment in its ‘Spotlight Session’ digital learning series, this time focused on gut health. Starring former CBeebies presenter Katy Ashworth, the free educational videos and resources are designed to promote food education and empower children aged 7 to 11 to make positive choices on food and nutrition.
The three-part, curriculum-linked video series teaches children engaging lessons on food preparation, digestion, and how to improve gut health by eating high fibre foods such as fruits, vegetables, and wholegrains. It comes at a time when it has never been more important for schools to educate pupils about food, nutrition, and cooking, against a backdrop of rising food insecurity, increasing childhood obesity levels and a growing number of children managing allergens.
The Spotlight Session videos see Katy Ashworth, in collaboration with Chartwells’ Senior Nutritionist Marnie George, make gut health education fun and accessible for children. Each video is supported by lesson plans, practical activities, worksheets, and quizzes, which teachers and parents can download and use for free.
Katy Ashworth comments: “Early education on health and nutrition is essential for setting children up with positive outlooks on food. This new Spotlight Session, developed in partnership with Chartwells, delivers fun, accessible lessons on how to take care of your gut.
“Pupils will go on an engaging journey through the digestive system throughout a series of three videos, with supporting lesson plans, experiments and quizzes – providing hours of fun learning for children, packaged up in a way that’s easy to deliver. The sessions will inspire a real love of healthy food and ignite pupils’ passions for protecting their physical and mental health.”
Marnie George, Senior Nutritionist at Chartwells, adds: “We’re on a mission to ensure young people are educated and feel empowered to make the right decisions when it comes to food choices, nutrition, and sustainability. We know that when it comes to the topic of health there is a lot of misinformation out there and it can be difficult for children to understand what is good for them and what isn’t.
“Through this video series, not only do we want to provide a comprehensive, cost-effective digital resource for schools, but we also want to make a complex topic fun, engaging, and easy to understand for children, helping to encourage a lifelong positive relationship with food.”
Launched at the Schools & Academies Show in Birmingham, the gut health series starring Katy Ashworth is the second of Chartwells’ Spotlight Sessions. The premiere series, released in February 2024 and presented by Allegra McEvedy in partnership with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, explored the role bumblebees play in our food system.
Spotlight Sessions are an extension of Beyond the Chartwells Kitchen, a free, collaborative service for Chartwells’ partner schools. Working together with pupils, parents, and teachers, Chartwells delivers in-school workshops to teach children of all ages essential lessons on food, nutrition, wellbeing, and sustainability – including practical lessons on cooking.
Looking ahead, Chartwells is committed to supporting and collaborating with schools across the UK to create engaging tools and digital content that will help educate pupils, and will continue to roll out new Spotlight Sessions in the new year.
The Spotlight Session videos, along with lesson plans, practical activities, worksheets and quizzes, can be downloaded for free on Chartwells’ website.