The beating heart of the School Food Plan is the drive to get more children eating healthy school meals. Around the country, a powerful force is coming together in a scheme specially designed to work on getting more pupils to choose school food – but time is running out for schools to secure their share of support.
Commissioned by the Department for Education, the scheme brings together the Children’s Food Trust, Food for Life Partnership, and The Design and Technology Association to offer more than £1-million-worth of training, support and materials to help schools increase the number of pupils opting to use the canteen.
The support brings together the school community from school leaders, cooks and students to develop fresh ideas around school meals. It can also help schools take a positive step in the right direction for Ofsted, whose inspectors will be looking for evidence of a culture of healthy eating within schools in the new Common Inspection Framework.
Libby Grundy from the Food for Life Partnership has said: “Improving school meals has been put on the plate of head teachers, caterers and school business managers in recent years, and this package is an ideal way they can access expert support.
“Improving school meals will in turn lead to improvements in attainment and behaviour, which is great news for any school. If staff at junior or secondary schools need a little extra support, then the packages on offer across England can make all the difference, but time is of the essence, so please register now.”
The Food for Life Partnership is helping schools in the north of England, the Midlands and London as part of the scheme with training, a bespoke online action plan and expert regional support.
So far, 13 councils have won praise from us for joining the scheme in the south-east, south-west and the east Midlands.
It’s now working with Swindon, Somerset, Bath and North-East Somerset, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, West Berkshire, Bracknell Forest, Reading, Wokingham, Windsor, and Maidenhead and Portsmouth local authorities, giving specialist training to teams so they can help schools get more children opting for school meals, focusing on the small things that can make a big difference.
Schools are also being offered ready-made marketing programmes to get pupils excited about school meals, along with site visits and one-to-one support on operational issues.
Rightly, there’s been a heavy focus on supporting infant schools to make sure they were ready to deliver free school meals for all their pupils, but if we want that legacy to last throughout children’s school years, we have to make sure help gets to other schools, too.
And with Ofsted’s inspection framework including such an emphasis on food from September this year, there’s an even bigger incentive for schools to get this right.
Right across England, the Design and Technology Association and its partners are offering a package of support to secondary schools.
Food teachers are being trained and supported to be the school’s food champions, directly assisting heads to bring the school’s food culture, curriculum and food service together through pupil voice in an innovative new way.
This includes engaging pupils to create healthier, popular school lunches and using simple steps to tackle the issues pupils care about.
For information about the help and resources available visit www.schoolfoodplan.com/takeup.