Table 5 Illustrative quotes from the qualitative work undertaken as part of the process evaluation

Physical Activity

‘you try and have your routine but then you might have an assembly that goes over or it just doesn’t fit in with the children the way they are, so you know, sometimes we can’t do it now but we have to do it later’. (Teacher)

‘they know what they’re expected to do, it starts off the day and the afternoon in a calm way’ (Teacher)

‘I can’t say we always did 30 min, I think we always did possible 20, you know, it’s difficult as you appreciate, you’ve got assessment weeks, you’ve got different activities going on and so… we did our best, yeah. I think probably 20 was more realistic’ (Teacher)

Cooking workshops

‘the cooking workshops are great and it’s really lovely to come in and work with your child’ (Parent)

‘I think the cooking workshops worked well and the fact that the children could bring their parents along, the parents felt included, the parents were positive in the fact that their children were trying different food’ (teacher)

‘for the dinner I tried the beans and I like them’ (Child)

a) ‘you can’t have loads of sugar’ (Child)

b) ‘fibre gives you an energy boost and it gives you energy for longer not like sugars, the sugars just give you energy for one minute’ (Child)

‘so well resourced, you know, you could just literally just pick up the box, I didn’t even have to, you know, the lessons beforehand you didn’t have to photocopy them, everything was just there for you’ (Teacher)

‘well this is going to sound terrible but I’ve only really done the first one and we did that in spring term. The other two we are going to do this term. The reason why well autumn term we do a major production towards Christmas time which I was organising and liaising with four classes, so that took up a lot of our time and hall time as well, and then we’ve just recently had SATS [tests undertaken in Year 2] and that took priority’ (Teacher)

Villa Vitality

‘I had a really, really lots of fun there’ [VV at AVFC] (Child)

‘I think the Villa Vitality was definitely a highlight for me, and we’re doing reports at the moment and a lot of the children… they’re writing about their favourite thing from year two and a lot of them have actually mentioned that’ (Teacher)

‘it was fantastic and combining the sport and the nutrition was brilliant’ (Teacher)

Signposting

a) ‘I haven’t had any children come to me and tell me that they’ve gone to any of these groups’ (Female Teacher)

b) ‘I’m not sure how much of an impact they had’ (Teacher)

‘signposting I can’t even remember having these’ (Parent)

‘Yeah I remember looking at this and thinking we’re all on a tight budget and it’s all about cost’ (Parent)

General

‘it is a bit easier now that we’re getting towards the holidays because lessons aren’t so rigid and SATs are out the way, but

beforehand it was difficult and of course teachers have different views on it, so I might have had a teacher in the room

that felt that actually that wasn’t as important as doing that extra 15 min in maths, so you might have that little bit of a battle at times’ (Teacher)

Are you going to continue the intervention next year?

‘If you get somebody who’s enthusiastic or, you know, then I

think it depends doesn’t it cause so many people can be so negative about everything and don’t necessarily want to do it.

I think you just… I think if you can get the right person to lead it and see the benefits and, you know, I don’t think it would

be… there wouldn’t be a barrier to doing it. The only barrier I would see is a person, if that makes sense? (Teacher)

‘Possibly not… that sounds awful really, purely because it was a lot of time and hall space and sorting out this,

that and the other and of course there’s a lot of children, there’s a hell of a lot goes behind it even though it was all

mapped out for us really’ (Teacher)