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Food For Thought – What Makes For A Good School Lunch Policy?

Recent reports of Michaela Community School's 'Lunch Isolation' policy have prompted widespread criticism – but the desire to make school lunchtimes healthy, affordable and enjoyable is surely something we can all get behind, says Linda Cregan…

Linda Cregan
by Linda Cregan
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Whatever your views on Michaela Community School’s policy of seating children in isolation at lunchtime if their family falls behind on paying for school meals, there’s one thing upon which we should all agree – making good school meals affordable for all families could make a step change in alleviating school dinner debt.

If school food tastes good and comes at a price that’s within reach, more families will opt to use the school dining room. With more children having school meals come economies of scale and the means to keep prices down, helping more families to stay on track.

Yes, there will always be families who need the support of free school meals – but for those who don’t quite qualify, pricing school meals affordably can really make a difference for children.

The lunchtime experience

At The Children’s Food Trust, we see more children having good school food as our ultimate goal because it’s better for their health.

Research shows that good school meals are far healthier than packed lunches. Our latest analysis of what children are eating in lunchboxes shows that chocolate biscuits, crisps and drinks that serve up a 6-year-old’s entire daily limit of sugar in one hit were still staples of hundreds of millions of packed lunches eaten by under 16’s in the last year. And that’s before considering the benefits in the classroom – when children eat better at lunchtime, research shows they’re up to three times more on-task with their teachers in the afternoon.

So where do you start on getting more children into your dining room? It’s not just about the practical stuff, such as thinking about how many children need to be served, the kind of menus you want to offer and what benchmarks you want to focus on – it’s also about where food fits in with life at your school.

How do you want your pupils to think about food? Do you have a sense of their priorities for a good lunchtime? What else is important for eating well at your school, over and above good food? What do you want to do differently? What should stay the same? Is there anything new you want to try?

Talk to those schools putting effort and energy into making lunchtimes an important part of the school day – and making school cooks key members of the school community – and you’ll get some idea of how good food culture can make a school feel whole.

It’s about recognising that it’s not just about the food; it’s about the whole experience of lunchtime. How it feels for children to eat in your dining space; whether they have to queue for ages; the likelihood of them finding a seat free; whether they feel cramped or rushed; and whether the canteen is somehow noisy or smelly.

What sort of facilities do your staff have for preparing food? Inefficient kitchens that don’t allow staff to make the most of their skills won’t help your school’s chances of boosting take-up of school meals.

Try it yourself

One thing you can do when the new term rolls around is eat in your school’s dining room yourself. How do you feel, as a customer? Sit with your meal and watch how the experience is working for pupils – there may be common patterns and problems which you won’t see unless you eat in the canteen yourself. Next, find out from your pupils what they think – a simple questionnaire run by your school council, for example, would be a good starting point.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that one size never fits all here. There are many different options and solutions for making lunchtime a more pleasant experience – but what the best school food experiences share is an understanding that a good school lunch is about far more than just the food – and that it all starts with really listening to what your customers want.

Without exception, investing a bit of time in improving your lunchtimes so that more children choose school food will always pay back a good return.

Linda Cregan is CEO of The Children’s Food Trust; for more information, visit www.childrensfoodtrust.org.uk or follow @ChildFoodTrust

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