COUNCILS NATIONWIDE take positive steps to improve school meals

Several local Councils are forging ahead to improve school meals by working with the Soil Association’s Food for Life programme. This is a national project which promotes healthy and sustainable food in schools.

With 16 schools already enlisted into the 3-year scheme, the aim is to encourage a further 64 schools to join. Participants receive training and assistance with the introduction of nutritious meals throughout the school. A key part of the programme is training for teachers, schools and local authority staff. Last year a group of 21 people including teachers and council staff attended a training session, built around a seasonal recipe and food education.

Emma Heesom from Food for Life explains the advantages of the programme, “The Food for Life recipe is simple,” she says. “We give schools all they need to get pupils growing, cooking and connected to nature. It’s not making more work, it’s about using food and growing to enrich the existing curriculum. Food for Life schools double their likelihood of becoming Ofsted Outstanding. Our awards (Bronze, Silver, Gold) provide excellent evidence for the Personal Development requirements of the new Ofsted inspection framework.

Food for Life provides all the resources to support the awards.”

Bury Council in Lancashire, one of the 16 participants, achieved a “Food for Life Served Here”

Bronze Award for sustainable and healthy meals provided throughout 52 primary schools.

According to Andrew Cowan, Catering Area Manager at Bury Council, advantages of participating in the programme include using more local suppliers, high quality local ingredients and an increased uptake of school meals. It also supports healthy eating at home as pupils learn about the food on their plate. He says, “The ‘Food for Life’ accreditation links into many strategies within the council. Not only does it support reducing our carbon footprint by using organic, local suppliers, it also supports the health and wellbeing of pupils and their families. From a commercial perspective, it supports increased meal uptake, which can contribute to the budget. We’re looking at the silver award from October with our Autumn/Winter menu.”

Bolton Council also achieved the Food for Life Served Here Bronze Award and now confidently assures parents, children and schools “that we care about the food we serve,” says Jane Barber. A total of 77 schools in Bolton participated in the scheme. “We have independent verification of school meal standards and ingredient quality,” she says. “Our school kitchen teams try to promote healthy eating for our young customers, and we believe achieving this award supports their hard work and commitment. It involved assessing our menus to ensure we had over 75% of food freshly prepared. We needed support from our suppliers in providing evidence of food quality accreditations. It felt like a challenge at first, but we’re glad we persevered!”

Medway Council is one of the most recent additions to the program. Explaining their rationale for joining the scheme, Senior Public Health Manager, Julia Thomas says, “Unfortunately, childhood obesity rates in Medway are higher than the national average and we are taking a whole system approach to tackling this issue. Food for Life has experience of working with schools and delivering cooking, growing and eating projects and their award scheme recognises good practice. We’ve only completed one full term, but so far we are very happy with how it’s going.”

Above and Below: Bolton Council celebrating the Food for Life Served Here Bronze Award