Bournemouth primary schools get hot meals hub

Work has already started on the development of the kitchen in part of the former Townsend School site which will officially open on Monday 13 October. The new kitchen, which creates around 20 jobs for the local community and will be managed by the borough's new school meal provider Cygnet Catering, will produce and deliver approximately 2,000 fresh, hot meals each day to primary school children at 22 schools. The hot meal service will be phased in gradually over the next four months and by the end of January 2009 all Bournemouth primary schools will be providing hot meals to children in a dining room environment. It is a big cultural change for primary schools in Bournemouth as many currently only offer a cold meal service which children eat in their classrooms. Councillor Malcolm Davies, Cabinet Member for Children & Families Services, said: "This is part of a wider national initiative to improve the quality of school meals across the country. We have been involved in establishing the new service and supporting schools planning their new lunchtimes for the last two years. Very few primary schools in Bournemouth have any kitchen facilities on site, so the opening of the hub kitchen has been a significant aspect of our School Meals Improvement Programme and will give many more pupils access to a hot meal." In addition to the hub kitchen, many schools are now able to produce hot meals on site following kitchen re-fits. Kingsleigh Primary and Christ the King Primary switched to serving hot meals at the start of the Autumn term thanks to newly re-fitted kitchens and are already seeing the benefits. Richard Gower, Head Teacher at Kingsleigh Primary, said: "Introducing hot meals has been a great success for the school. It's lovely to see the children all eating together in the dining room. Since the start of term there has been a big increase in the uptake of school meals which reflects the quality of the food." More individual school kitchens are planned for the next three years following the recent successful funding bid to the Department for Children, Schools and Families.