Short Abstract

Nourish is a long-term, flexible intervention to improve food environments in schools. This presentation explores how adaptive evaluation was used over five years to develop and shape the Nourish delivery model, as well as to demonstrate impact and wider applicable learning in a compelling way.

Description

Nourish is a long-term, flexible intervention designed to improve school food environments in individual schools. This presentation explores how adaptive evaluation was used to develop and shape the Nourish delivery model, as well as to demonstrate impact and wider applicable learning in a compelling way.

The Nourish programme supports schools to adopt a whole school approach to food. This approach, recommended by both the World Health Organisation and the UK’s School Food Plan, promotes nutritious food across the school day - from the classroom to the dining room- while engaging the whole school community.

Delivered over five years in Southwark and Lambeth, the programme evolved iteratively, shaped by continuous feedback from both the evaluation and the frontline team.

We will focus on how adaptive evaluation can:

- Rise to the challenge of evaluating a programme with no fixed delivery model at the outset

- Fully explore the nuance which makes evaluation learning more practically applicable to a broader range of audiences

- Strengthen relationships between evaluation and frontline teams, and magnify the value of an iterative process

- Help longer-term programmes adapt to changing policy climates

We share the strategies that helped build strong relationships between the evaluation and delivery teams and how we supported the delivery team to work iteratively and reflectively.

This session will showcase how the adaptive approach shaped not only programme delivery but also future iterations of the work, including new strands of the programme in secondary and special schools. It will also demonstrate how this approach supported School Food Matters’ wider policy and campaigning work around improving school food, including the government’s roll out of universal breakfast provision.