Our pilot work on teachers’ attitudes to children drinking water in the classroom and their strategies for increasing consumption was presented at the British Feeding and Drinking Group annual conference, Swansea, April 2019.
Full poster available here
Poster abstract – Children drink insufficient fluid during the school day and class teachers can play an important role in influencing the amount that children drink. Our pilot study evaluated teachers’ attitudes to children drinking water in the classroom and strategies for increasing drinking. Sixty-six teachers from four London primary schools participated in an online questionnaire. Teachers’ age ranged from 21 to 63 years (mean age 41 years); years of teaching experience ranged from newly qualified to 42 years (mean 9.5 years). The majority of teachers (85%) felt that children should have access to water in the classroom, but there was less consensus about the location of drinks. Some teachers reported that free access to water in the classroom can sometimes be distracting (57%) and may negatively affect some children’s work (66%). This is likely to vary with the age group taught. However, many teachers believed that children are more focused and less irritable when not thirsty (90%). Event-cued strategies for encouraging water consumption in the classroom were frequently reported, for example, after exercise, break times and when changing activities. Strategies for minimising the perceived or actual disruption associated with children drinking water during lessons were also reported, for example, using British Sign Language to indicate desire for a drink. Future work will refine our questionnaire before assessing a large and representative sample of UK schoolteachers in order to provide recommendations for policy and practice.
Caroline J Edmonds (a), Paula Booth (a), Kinvara Carey (c), Alison Stafford (d), Anthony Walker (c), Mark Gardner (b)
a. School of Psychology, University of East London.
b. Department of Psychology, University of Westminster.
c. Natural Hydration Council
d. Healthy Schools London