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Education is critical in enabling children to reach their full potential. Schools foster learning and quality educational experiences, influencing children’s long-term physical, social, mental, and emotional health and wellbeing, forming and transforming the futures of children. Healthy and confident children can fully engage in learning and maximise their potential. Over 4 million Australian children and young people attend school for 6-7 hours, 5 days a week, around 40 weeks per year from the age 4 or 5 to about 17 years. The universal reach of the school setting means that schools are well placed to support Australian children of all backgrounds and circumstances. Most Australian children consume one-third of their day’s food intake during school hours, equivalent to 2,400 lunches if a child completes 12 years of schooling. Over 80% of students’ lunches are considered to be poor nutritional quality, and intake of the five food groups is well below national recommendations. Food consumed at school is an opportunity to support all Australian children to be well nourished to better engage in their learning, develop social skills and support growth, health and wellbeing. Currently the Australian school food system is not structured, supported or resourced to feed children well at school and much of this responsibility falls to caregivers

Background: Evidence shows children gain more weight during the summer holidays versus the school year. Objectives: To examine within-child differences in activity and diet behaviours during the summer holidays versus the school year. Methods: Children (mean age 9.4 years; 37% male) wore accelerometers (GENEActiv; n = 133), reported activities (Multimedia Activity Recall for Children and Adolescents; n = 133) and parents reported child diet (n = 133) at five timepoints over 2 years capturing school and summer holiday values. Mixed-effects models were used to compare school and summer holiday behaviours. Results: Children spent less time in moderate- to vigorous-physical activity (−12 min/day; p = 0.001) and sleep (−12 min/day; p