Why I left a full-time teaching role to pursue a passion for school food research

Kelly Rose, Graduate Tutor/PhD researcher at Teesside University, writes about her journey to help young people make healthy food choices in a guest post for National School Meals Week.

‘Why?’ was the question I was asked numerous times when I first announced that I would be leaving my role as ‘Head of health education, and food and nutrition’ teacher in a well-respected secondary school. A job everyone around me knew I had loved; it had provided me with job satisfaction and I was able to make a difference everyday (because that’s what teachers do). To add to the incredulity of those around me, not only was I leaving this hard earned role, I was taking a 50% pay cut to embark on a short-term research contract to complete my PhD with no assurance of job security afterwards!

Here is a little background about why I came to - what was for me - a very easy decision.

As an adolescent I found myself in an extremely confused state about healthy food choices, being the ‘right’ weight and having a positive mental health. Then, when I became a mum, the painful realisation that my girls may be feeling that confusion made me want to make a societal change in whatever way I could. Not really knowing where to start, at 32 years old I threw myself into a degree in Food, Nutrition and Health Science. At this stage my only qualifications were four GCSEs and a BTEC diploma in Travel and Tourism. I still don’t know how I believed I could do it!

Three years later I had become so passionate about the power of food that I wanted to teach it to as many young people as possible. With renewed confidence, my First-class honours, and an award winning third-year ‘school lunch’ poster project, off I went to complete a PGCE in design and technology. In that year I spent more time making a wooden stool than learning about nutrition (approximately three hours) because that’s how we still train food teachers – but that’s a story for another time.

I discovered that I loved to teach and, in addition to my teaching, did all I could to help young people make healthy choices. I researched interventions, registered on courses, spoke at various events including ‘Food Matters Live’ in London and was invited to speak at a dietetic student conference at The Hague, Holland. I was thriving and learning so much about the education system: the teaching leads were happy, the GCSE results were superb, and we were improving the healthy choices and the health education in the school. It was a fantastic opportunity to be in a place where the leadership supported the health agenda. Even so, after a while, it became clear that there were barriers that were much larger than the school environment: policy change had become confusing and the support in implementing food standards had disappeared. The external environment of advertising close to schools, proliferation of fast food outlets and shops offering cheap energy drinks. The social norms around eating behaviour in our teenagers had become a turbulent misunderstood tangle of factors, and this with all of the curriculum changes and budget cuts! It was in my last two years (of seven teaching) that I spent time writing PhD proposals, knowing that to make a change I needed to be able to add research to this field, to inform the decision making processes.

That is why I feel extremely lucky to have been given the opportunity to do research at Teesside University and to have access to inspirational researchers and existing work through the Fuse network, and of course to fulfil the dream of having a positive impact on the school food environment.

I am now 8 weeks into my graduate tutor/PhD researcher post and I am sure that I have made the right decision. I used the library every day in my first week, pinching myself, not quite believing I was here with time to research and learn. Every day I am learning and have so far developed a timeline of policy past-to-present, an ecological framework of everything that impacts school food choice from the macro level (government structure and policy, sustainability focus, food supply, food industry and manufacturing, behaviours etc.) to the external and internal physical settings and the individual students. I know from my time in education that consistency and communication are key components of making sustainable healthy change in schools. I hope that I will be able to provide a clear direction on where that focus should be to contribute to the reduction of the ‘obesogenic’ environment for our young people. I have far to go in understanding the myriad of methodologies required to do this work, but I will delve into past research and attend workshops to learn all I can. As I develop questions and embark on a systematic review I have the feeling that I am at the bottom of a huge mountain, ready to make the climb. It is just the beginning and I am aware that significant patience and discipline are going to be needed to get to the top of that mountain.

I look forward to meeting you on my journey.


#schoolmealsshoutout #NSMW18

Find out more about National School Meals Week here: http://thegreatschoollunch.co.uk