Crookes said: “Being a secondary school serving up to 750 students across five service areas and three service times, we can’t always commit to a full week of NSMW days, and a lot of the themes are more suited to primary schools.
“However, in 2023 we had our first theme day during National School Meals Week with Retro Food, where our guest was the council’s CEO. We followed that up in 2024 with a Street Food Day. My team and I came up with some great street food ideas and at the LACA Main Event in July 2024 I spoke to Luke Stanesby from Middleton Foods about their new marinades. They gave me some samples and we tried them out.
“The ones that made it to the final choice for the day, were the shawarma, Mediterranean and Mexican. We cooked Mexican Quorn Bao Buns, Shawarma Beef Flatbreads and Mediterranean Chicken Pasta. Sweets included sugar doughnuts, chocolate waffles and sticky American pancakes.
“Middleton Foods happily helped us out with bao buns and marinades, and two of their chefs, Luke and Justin Clarke, joined us for the day. Our VIP guest list included our local Mayor Faye Cunningham and Mayoress Stella Matthewson.
“Unfortunately I was off ill with the norovirus, but my brilliant team – who I am super proud of – stuck to my plans and pulled off a fabulous day for everyone. Thank you to Lesley, Kyonai, Pat, Sue, Judith, Gillian, Lisa W, Leah, Joanne, Lynsey, Kayleigh, MJ, Lisa S, Gladys, and Bethany.
“I believe it’s efforts like this that will help people to understand just how important the school meals service is, and that Government needs to support the service in order to provide students with the food they need through the whole of the school day.”
The 2025 version of NSMW will take place from 10-14th November. The theme is school lunch skills for life with five core branches including nutrition, community, environment, social and cooking together.