K4 for Schools

‘Life is for thriving – be proud of who you are”

What is K4 for Schools?

K4 FitKidz Schools has originated from an outside school project designed by Denise Kelly, the founder of K4 FitKidz, written for children and families who had a desire to learn more about healthy eating and better lifestyle choices. Having run a series of successful FitKidz programs with sponsors such as Tesco and Waitrose, and seeing the impact small changes can make to children’s lives, she saw the need to teach to a larger audience.

Denise is a fully qualified BANT registered nutritional therapist who runs a busy practice in Chichester, West Sussex, and is very passionate about her work. Having two young children of her own she realised the importance of her work, believing that good nutrition and exercise is essential to children’s mental alertness, brain power, behaviour, mental stability, attitude to life, sport, food, self discipline and overall happiness.

The power of group teaching increases childrens interest and learning capacities, and if the positive message of Nutrition is perceived to be ‘cool’, intelligent and vibrant, then in our experience the results will last a lifetime, potentially changing the future for some of the children.

This program is unique, detailed and informative. Our teaching skills make sure that children are enthused and entertained, and the contents of the program has been tried and tested and delivered it in a way that will ensure children retain the information. We hope to influence children’s thoughts about nutrition and exercise so that they can make the best choices in life for themselves and pass on the powerful message to others around them.

Our program is an ideal support to a schools health promotion strategy, and is connected to the curriculum for PSHE, Science and PE.

How will the program benefit your school children?

The program will enable the children to:

Understand the direct link between nutrition and good health
Make better choices for themselves around food and healthy living
Understand the diseases associated with the long term consequences of poor lifestyle choices
Converse with adults and other children about the benefits of living healthier lives
Choose activities that make them happy
Understand the link between Nutrition and behaviour, emotional and mental well being, physical strength
Perceive healthy as ‘cool’ and socially acceptable
Boost their confidence, especially with children that are most at risk and empower them to make changes in their lives

What does the program consist of?

The program has been designed to incorporate the three key elements of a healthy lifestyle

Nutrition
Cookery
Exercise

Nutrition

During the nutrition session we teach in a fun, visual and memorable way consisting of:

The importance of water, and how much each child needs and why.

Introduce the children to our 100 trillion cells in the body and talk about what they do and what they need to survive.

Discuss the changes we can make in swapping certain fizzy drinks for water and how that would make you feel.

Discuss the effect on the body if we consume too much sugar and salt, and how it can affect our cell.

Looking at healthy cells and unhealthy cells and how this makes us feel.

Looking at the difference between good and bad fats and how they can make us healthy or unhealthy.

We refer to food throughout as Live Foods or Dead foods, with very visual and sensual demonstrations that help to register this difference in the child’s mind.

Discuss healthy foods that can be part of our every day eating plans such as food for lunch boxes, soups, pasta and pizza toppings and healthy breakfasts.

Where to get all our vitamins and minerals from in various foods and what these vitamins and minerals do for various parts of our bodies.

Why we need to eat our greens and why we recommend at least 8 fresh fruit and vegetables every day!

We have a traffic light system which demonstrates the difference between foods that are great to have every day, some that are ok sometimes and some that should be an occasional treat

We cover food that makes you brainy and foods that can affect your behaviour.

Fun Cookery and Recipes Ideas

At the heart of good nutrition is the ability to understand what to do with the healthy foods, how to be creative and to demonstrate how easy it is to include in the children’s lives.

The Cookery section is to make the food discussions real, and to show the children how they can implement the 8 fruit and vegetables into their lives easily.
The cooking demo will include making smoothies with green vegetables and fruits and letting each child sample how delicious this is!
The chef will prepare foods which will include 8 vegetables in sauces, and at least another four for the toppings, demonstrating up to 12 vegetables in one dish.
The children will get to prepare and taste many foods relating to the importance of good fresh food cooking.
Healthy breakfast ideas will be demonstrated and tasted as well as ideas to vamp up your fruit!

Fitkids Bootcamp

This is a very important part of the day and aims to encourage children to undertake why it is so important to exercise and to find something that they really enjoy.

We use the Bootcamp name to get the children interested, motivated and excited.
Lee will take the children through varied circuit training as well as some real fun and games.
We use tried and tested games, and exercises throughout the session as well as some innovative exercise ideas.
This will be a highly motivational and uplifting session using some great props to get the best out of the children.
We get everyone involved, taking into account the various levels of fitness of everyone participating and promote exercises that are non-competitive.
We play a game with the children where they learn the muscles of the body and again we reinforce the importance of physical activity.

Our aim is for the children to be occupied with our program for a full day, splitting the day into the three categories. Our time will be divided evenly around the children’s normal break times, and depending upon the amount of children requiring teaching, this program can easily be adapted to individual school needs.

In the last half an hour of the day we bring together all participants from the K4 Fitkids school day for a fun quiz to reinforce the information they have been given throughout the day.

The children will also have the opportunity to complete some follow up challenges set by K4 fitkidz and supported by the school in class follow up sessions and in homework. This is intended to help the children to understand and recognise that small changes can be made, and can make a difference.

The recipe ideas, tips and free gift will help support, remind and encourage the children and their families.

We believe strongly that the most impact is achieved when families learn this information together and actively encourage the school to invite parents in to observe the day so they can connect with their children on this important subject.

Denise Kelly