Chef Prue Leith opens new School FEAST centre at Doncaster College

The new centre will provide training and continuous education for cooks, kitchen assistants, lunch-time supervisors, school business managers, school governors, senior leadership staff, pupils and their parents. Across the network, School FEAST offers a core list of training and qualifications. In addition, the kitchens will provide a readily accessible supply of high quality training and ensure the school food workforce is motivated and encouraged to take up the training needed. This is especially critical since the introduction in September for all schools to follow new government guidelines for food and nutrition-based standards. Other speakers to take to the stage at tomorrow's event are Gill Parkes, academy director, academy of Commercial Enterprise and John Taylor, interim principal and chief executive of Doncaster College. The college is one of 29 specialist centres and partnerships comprising School FEAST (Food Skills and Excellence Training), the national training network. It became a regional training centre for the School FEAST network in November 2008 after a successful bid with partners, Doncaster School Meals Service and NHS Doncaster. Leith said: "The School FEAST Network signals a training revolution for school cooks and other school staff. I'm delighted to help launch Doncaster's School FEAST facilities, which will now play a key role in nurturing the school cooks of the future, training scores of staff across hundreds of schools in the region. This will help ensure more children and young people eat a healthy school lunch every day."