Doncaster school children rewarded for healthy eating

School children at Conisborough Ivanhoe Junior Infants, Moorends West Road and Scawsby Rosedale primary schools, together with Hungerhill, Ridgewood School and Hallcross Lower secondary schools, are all taking part. For three weeks in May, primary school children will receive a Lego brick every time they purchase a healthy school meal. These Lego tokens will then be exchanged for an end of year party. The more tokens collected, the more activities will be provided at the party. In addition, each week prizes will be given for the class eating the most school dinners. The class collecting the most tokens at the end of the promotion will be treated as VIPs at the end of term party. There will also be a bigger "family" prize at each school for one lucky child who has had a lunch every day over the promotion period. Secondary school children will receive a raffle ticket every time they purchase a healthy school meal. As well as having a 1 in 10 chance of instantly winning a free drink, raffle tickets will also be entered into draws to win a wide variety of daily and weekly prizes, together with a big end of promotion prize worth between £300 and £450. The project is being run by the School Food Trust with the support of the Local Authority and the schools involved, and will be supported by advertising. Adrian Pickersgill, Doncaster Schools Catering Manager for Doncaster Council, said: "Tackling the effects of poor diet and rising rates of childhood obesity is a key priority for us. We're committed to increasing the number of children eating healthy school meals as a way to combat this. This initiative will help enormously by showing how meal take-up can be improved by using targeted promotional activities." Based on the results of the pilot scheme in Doncaster, and a similar scheme taking place in Worcester, the promotion will be rolled out on a larger scale next year.