Food for thought

Every child is offered a free school meal at Reema Reid’s school and children can ask for a snack at any time. Here she explains why food is at the heart of her leadership vision.

Photos: Rehan Jamil

At her south London school, the day begins for 50 of its 160 pupils with a free healthy breakfast (see box, right), funded by the Greggs Foundation, which also donates 20 loaves of wholemeal bread a week. Reema works with School Food Matters to plan healthy breakfasts.

The charity exists to teach children about food and to improve children’s access to healthy, sustainable food during their time at school. At break time, children are given fruit as a healthy snack. Lunch is always hot and freshly cooked. Reema works with school catering company Chartwells and Hollydale’s in-house cook on the menus to check meals are balanced and nutritious.

Her attention to detail could be described as forensic.

It is influenced, she freely admits, by her background.

Food at Hollydale

• Free breakfast club, funded by the Greggs Foundation – wholemeal toast, yoghurt, fruit, porridge and a cooked breakfast, including chicken sausages, once a week. greggsfoundation.org.uk

• Fruit at breaktime

• Cooked lunch – with an emphasis on diversity, with themed days such Caribbean day, Italian day and so on.

• Children can ask for a snack at any time.

• Two food banks a week at 3pm staffed by parents, one provided by the Phoenix Trust, the other by City Harvest. They are for any family in need, rather than those deemed vulnerable, because it is recognised many are living just above the poverty line. Hollydale operates an “equality of provision for all” policy.

• Children sell fruit and vegetables they have grown themselves at London’s Borough Market once a year, as part of an initiative run by charity School Food Matters. schoolfoodmatters.org

• Dr Chef initiative: a professional chef comes in to Hollydale and works with the children for three or four sessions, introducing them to new vegetables and doing tasting sessions.

• Initiatives such as Fizz-Free February have been introduced at the school.

• Posters with health messages about food are displayed in the dining hall.

• Children drink water only and bring in their own water bottle.

• In the holidays, the school opens four days a week and has Department for Education funding of £22 per child, per day, to offer a Holiday Activities Food Programme. Between 40 and 50 children attend.

When she became a single parent (her four children are now grown up), Reema says she knew what it was to be short of money, and the food at school was very important, being her children’s main meal of the day. She had also worked as a meal supervisor, or dinner lady, many years before training as a teacher in 1997. “Turkey Twizzlers were part of my era,” she remembers. “There was no focus then on nutritional value or the impact of nutritious food on attainment.”

Now, of course, there is a stack of research showing the links between nutritious food, concentration, cognitive skills and academic performance.

At Hollydale, which Reema has led for a decade, all children have a head start on getting the food they need to make the most of their education.

The school is in the London borough of Southwark, where every primary pupil is given a free school meal. “I am very lucky,” Reema agrees. The universal offer means those children whose families are just above the poverty line, and would not qualify for a free school lunch ordinarily, are given a nutritious meal.

All but eight of her pupils take up the offer. From September, all primary pupils in the capital will be entitled to a free school meal as part of a year-long initiative announced by London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

The NEU is calling for universal free school meals for primary age children (see box, opposite page), as part of our child poverty campaign, No Child Left Behind.

Reema’s level of commitment to food at her school, however, goes beyond feeding disadvantaged children, she says, and has a broader focus on food education for pupils and their parents.

Finding support

Working with a range of organisations and charities, Reema is able to draw more funds into Hollydale to pay for extra food, in addition to what is council-funded, and she also has links with a range of experts who help with food education. She wouldn’t be able to deliver what she does without these organisations, and is very appreciative, but at the same time there is a frustration that heads need to apply for extra funds.

“Food needs to be seen as an important part of children’s education,” she says. “My journey in education has really influenced the way I am as a leader. When I trained as a teacher, and then when I became a senior leader, part of my vision was that food would be important in the school I led.

“As a head teacher, you have a responsibility to make sure the children are eating well and that they understand the importance of a healthy lifestyle in the future. It is also important to understand the impact of healthy food on their concentration and on things like attendance. Children want to come to school if the food is good and illness-related absence reduces if we build their immune systems with nutritious food.

“If heads made the connection between the impact of food on schools, every head would have that real passion and strategic overview of how important quality food is for all pupils regardless of disadvantage.”

At her school, children are encouraged to speak up if they feel hungry at any time and they will be given a healthy snack if they want one.

On Wednesdays – roast day – parents are invited in to have lunch with their children. Music plays in the dining room and parents have an opportunity to taste the food and see their children socialising with friends.

Reema says: “It is a strategy to allow parents to come in and see what the school food looks like and they are surprised at the quality and variety of food provided for pupils daily. Some have thought schools are still in Turkey Twizzler zone. Last term 50 parents attended the parents’ lunch taster day and the feedback was 100 per cent positive. How many schools o er this?

“We want parents to be part of their child’s education, and at Hollydale food is part of the education we o er,” she adds. “School Food Matters has been providing support and guidance on school meals and food education to my school.

“ e charity wants every child to be able to access the good nutrition and food knowledge they need to thrive, and I would certainly encourage any school tackling food issues to get in touch with this charity. A key question here is whose job is it to educate children about food? If we as educators don’t put this on the agenda and make sure all children can access healthy food, who will?”

NEU’s free school meals for all campaign

THE union’s Free School Meals for All campaign is going from strength to strength. Launched in September 2022, the campaign calls for the expansion of free school meal provision to every child in primary school – to bring England in line with Wales and Scotland, and to ensure no child is le behind. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has already taken action in providing emergency funding to ensure every primary school child in London will be entitled to a free, healthy school lunch, every day, throughout the 2023/24 academic year.

Between 24 and 30 June, the NEU held a week of national action to highlight the farreaching benefits of free school meals for all. Activists hosted school assemblies, set up co ee mornings, organised a weekend of prayer, created videos for social media, engaged with the press and much more. The week culminated in the delivery of our open letter to 10 Downing Street – an event attended by MPs, peers, educators, health professionals, faith leaders and community organisers. As Lead went to press, our open letter had the support of over 220 organisations and more than 53,000 individual signatures. As schools and Parliament head towards the summer break, we will regroup and prepare to come back even stronger in September.

freeschoolmealsforall.org.uk/ take-action