Salads top of the class

The kitchen at Tredworth Junior School, Gloucester, served 243 salads, while Arthur Dye Primary School in Cheltenham dished up 99 salads, reported the Gloucestershire Council. Kirsty Pritchard, senior team leader for the county children's health and wellbeing team, said: "We have had a lot of positive feedback from head teachers, school cooks, parents and most importantly, the pupils." The new online payment system "ParentPay" is also proving popular with parents, who uploaded £80,000 by the end of the first week. This system allows payments for school meals to be made on a computer at home. Some schools have also seen a significant increase in numbers of pupils choosing school lunches over packed lunches. At St Paul's Primary in Linden, 20 more school lunch customers saw an increase of 33%. At Stroud Valley School, 31% more pupils had school meals and Lydney Primary saw a 25% increase in uptake. The new menus are being used in 160 Gloucestershire primary schools.