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Objectives: This study sought to provide an intermediate impact assessment of the nutrition intervention Petits cuistots--parents en réseaux (Little Cooks--Parental Networks) on: 1) knowledge, attitude, capacity and experience with regard to nutrition, diet and cookery, and 2) parental and/or family participation in school., Participants: A total of 388 students from grades 5 (participants) and 6 (non-participants)., Setting: The evaluation of the nutrition intervention took place in each of the seven participating elementary schools, all of which are located in Montreal's most disadvantaged neighbourhoods., Intervention: The program component "Little Cooks" is a nutrition workshop run by community dieticians. Each of the eight annual workshops features a food item and nutrition theme with a recipe for a collective food preparation and tasting experience. Classroom teachers participate to provide classroom management and program support. The "Parental Networks" component of the program invites parents to assist with the nutrition workshop, and offers additional parent and family activities which link to nutrition workshop themes (e.g., dinners or visits to local food producers)., Outcome: The program had some impact on knowledge of the nutrient content of food, food produce and cooking; attitude and experience with tasting of new or less common foods; and perceived cooking capacity. Families with students participating in the program participated more in school activities than did families of students not in the program., Conclusions: Our assessment indicates a potential program impact upon several intermediate impact measures, and in so doing highlights a promising nutrition capacity-promoting intervention.

Aim: To show that schools achieving higher examination pass and lower truancy rates than expected, given that their pupil populations (high value-added schools) are associated with a lower incidence of smoking among pupils (13-14 years)., Design: Value-added scores for schools were derived from standardized residuals of two regression equations predicting separately the proportion of pupils passing high school diplomas and the half-days lost to truancy from the socio-economic and ethnic profiles of pupils. The risk of regular smoking at 1- and 2-year follow-up was examined in relation to the value-added score in a cohort of 8352 UK pupils. Random-effects logistic regression was used to adjust for baseline smoking status and other adolescent smoking risk factors., Setting: A total of 52 schools, West Midlands, UK., Participants: Year 9 pupils aged 13-14 years (n = 8352) were followed-up after 1 year (n = 7444; 89.1% of original cohort) and 2 years (n = 6819; 84.6% of original cohort excluding pupils from two schools that dropped out)., Measurements: Regular smoking (at least one cigarette per week)., Findings: Schools with high value-added scores occurred throughout the socio-demographic spectrum. The odds ratio (95% confidence interval) for regular smoking for a 1 standard deviation increase in the value-added measure was 0.85 (0.73-0.99) at 1-year and 0.80 (0.71-0.91) at 2-year follow-ups. Baseline smoking status did not moderate this., Conclusions: Schools with high value-added scores are associated with lower incidence of smoking. Some schools appear to break the strong link between deprivation and smoking. Understanding the mechanisms could be of great public health significance.