Healthy eating with a 'Million Meals'

  

Healthy eating with a 'Million Meals' 

The School Food Trust’s Million Meals programme is helping schools throughout England put healthy eating at the heart of school life.  If healthy eating is on your agenda this term, or if you want to make effective improvements to your lunch service, this article will tell you how Million Meals can help.

The School Food Trust was set up in 2005 by the Department for Education and Skills to transform school food and food skills.  Over the past four years the Trust has introduced food and nutrient-based standards to improve the quality of food on offer and ensure that children are receiving all the nutrients they need to learn and grow.  While the food has improved, there is still a lot of work to do to make healthy eating a habit which children will take into adulthood.

Million Meals Initiative

The School Food Trust’s Million Meals initiative aims to get a million more pupils eating a healthy school lunch by the end of 2010.  Million Meals asks schools to commit to making their community healthier by teaching pupils why good food matters.  In return, the School Food Trust provides a library of free ready-made resources which explain how to make healthy eating work for their pupils.

Schools can sign up to join Million Meals for free at www. schoolfoodtrust.org.uk/millionmeals and get instant access to a huge range of supporting materials, for example, a parent-taster pack, posters advertising free school meals to parents, marketing packs, recipes and over a hundred school case studies, explaining what other schools have achieved. 

Million Meals encourages everyone in the school community to get involved in healthy eating, not only teachers and pupils, but parents and governors too.  For teachers, Million Meals provides primary and secondary school curriculum packs that meet elements of the National Curriculum across a range of subject areas.  For example, one lesson plan on letter writing combines persuasive writing with constructing arguments for eating healthily.   

Materials aimed at pupils include a school council pack to encourage students to take an active interest in their meal service; Work Up an Appetite for Change has been constructed to lead school council members through a process of debate, student research and action.  A set of fun, flexible, curriculum linked Key Stage 4 resources are also available which centre around helping students devise their own marketing campaign to promote school food to their peers.           

Million Meals in Action

Eastfield Primary School in Wolverhampton, is located in one of the most deprived areas in the UK.  60% of the school's pupils are entitled to free school meals and Nick Cunliffe, Head teacher at Eastfield, highlights that "for many of our children, the cooked meal here is their only cooked meal of the day".

Believing 'the child is at the centre of everything we do' the senior management team used Million Meal resources to establish a positive attitude to healthy eating across all food related activities within the school.

One of the first things the school did was to establish a School Nutrition Action Group to meet once a term.  Nick explains, "Pupil representatives participate in the group and they are a sounding board on many issues concerning healthy eating".  The School Council Pack gives advice on how this can be set up.

Nick and his senior team decided to eat in the dining room most lunch times, to provide the children with consistent, positive messages and praise for eating well and trying new foods.

An innovative incentive scheme was also developed that makes it fun for children to eat more vegetables with their school lunch. Alongside this, the school Catering Manager at Eastfield organised a series of vegetable and salad tasting sessions for all these pupils which proved really popular with the children.

At Sprowston Community High School in Norwich, being involved with Million Meals has had a dramatic impact on take-up.  Before making healthy eating a focus barely a fifth of pupils ate in the canteen, now more than 60% do.  The school used marketing materials for parents from the Million Meals site, and guidance on working with the school council.  The school council now helps to choose what’s on the menu.  

Healthy eating more important than ever

Research from the Department of Health in July revealed that one in six children in the UK are clinically obese by the time they start primary school.  By providing healthy food and teaching children and parents about good nutrition, schools have a vital role to play in reversing this trend. 

A nutritious diet doesn’t only affect physical health, but has a direct impact on a child’s ability to study.  School Food Trust research found that children who eat a healthy breakfast achieve better academic results and children who eat a healthy lunch are more focused and better able to learn.  Well-fed children are easier to teach, and find it easier to focus in lessons.

Free school meals

Recent School Food Trust research found that a fifth of parents on a low income in the UK had no idea if they could receive free school meals for their child.  The Trust has estimated that over 300,000 children are currently missing out.  Many parents may not realise that they could be entitled, or may be unsure about how to apply.

A poster encouraging parents to find out if they are entitled to claim free school meals is now available from the School Food Trust’s website.  Displaying posters in reception and directing parents to the school office for more information is one easy way to encourage take-up.  By taking up their free school meal allowance children are guaranteed to receive the nutrients they need to help them perform better during the school day. 

The poster can be downloaded from: www. schoolfoodtrust.org.uk/resources/fsmposter           

Further information on Million Meals can be found at www. schoolfoodtrust.org.uk/millionmeals