Happy New Year - defend the school meal standards!

Yesterday's school dinner. Compliant with the nutritional standards and very tasty it was too. I am planning to post regular pics of school meals as part of the campaign to insist academies and free schools meet the same nutritional standards

Gove happy to regulate new academies and free schools

Unbelievable! So Gove is absolutely happy to insist that the new academies and free schools he is hell bent on setting up will be forced to teach about the sanctity of marriage but completely free to serve poor quality food that doesn't meet minimum nutritional standards. Have a look at the story in todays Telegraph

This just shows how right Jamie Oliver, Children's Food Campaign and LACA are to fight this dangerous ruling. School Food Trust - please don't give this government any more cover.

Below is a copy of the letter I have sent to the Trust:

Hi Rob,

Thanks so much for your reply. I disagree that we need to collect evidence.

Firstly, we already know what happens when minimum nutritional standards are removed. The abolishing of these standards in 1980 led directly to appalling quality school meals. We certainly have plenty of evidence already to support this position.

Secondly, given how recently new academies have been released from the standards it is highly unlikely you will find much evidence of degeneration yet. However just because they are keeping largely to the standards now is no guarantee that they will do so 6 months, a year, 2 years from now. Are you not worried that if you produce a report saying that by and large the academies are keeping to the standards you will be effectively undermining the case for any school to be held to nutritional standards? I could well imagine the government using a report to make such a case.

I am concerned that Headteachers are facing very difficult financial decisions. Just last Friday we learned that music education faces a 27% budget reduction. Faced with this sort of news I am worried that some heads may well be tempted to make catering arrangements that allow them to make money from their school canteens by stocking confectionery and other items we were so pleased to see the back of.

I have huge respect for your work Rob and think that you and Judy have done a fantastic job with The School Food Trust. I am simply raising these concerns because I am deeply worried that this government is effectively engineering the demise of the standards that have done so much to protect children. I think that your review of the academies is fraught with danger and I raise this not to be difficult but as a friend.

The government are fighting on many fronts at the moment. Making a u turn on this will not cost them any money. I think it is worth pursuing.

The fight to keep nutritional standards begins

Below is the letter I had published in the Guardian:

Click here -( it is second letter down)

I've had the most fantastic responses from Jamie Oliver's team, LACA and the Children's Food Campaign.

Whilst the School Food Trust agrees with most of my sentiments they are keen to collect evidence before starting a campaign. I have huge respect for the Trust but I think their logic is flawed and that their position is highly dangerous.

Firstly, we already know what happens when minimum nutritional standards are removed. The abolishing of these standards in 1980 led directly to appalling quality school meals. We certainly have plenty of evidence already to support this position.

Secondly, given how recently new academies have been released from the standards it is highly unlikely we will find much evidence of degeneration yet. However just because they are keeping largely to the standards now is no guarantee that they will do so 6 months, a year, 2 years from now. I am worried that a report saying that by and large the academies are keeping to the standards you will be effectively undermining the case for any school to be held to nutritional standards? I could well imagine the government using a report to make such a case.

I am concerned that Headteachers are facing very difficult financial decisions. Just last Friday we learned that music education faces a 27% budget reduction. Faced with this sort of news I am worried that some heads may well be tempted to make catering arrangements that allow them to make money from their school canteens by stocking confectionery and other items we were so pleased to see the back of.

I still believe that this government is using the academies issue to engineer the demise of the standards.

School Food Nightmare - UPDATE

If we don't defend the nutritional food standards it is highly likely school food will return to the appalling pre 2005 standards.

Considering Mr Gove is such a big fan of history it is ironic that he spectacularly fails to learn from it. In 1980 when Thatcher was busy busy ripping the heart out of the school system she abolished nutritional food standards for school meals, freed schools from having to provide them and introduced a nasty form of tendering, (compulsory, competitive tendering) which saw decent school cooks slung out on the scrap heap whilst fast food merchants moved in. She also allowed changes to the pricing system which meant unscrupulous caterers could sell junk, mark up it up, make profits while our kids health & nutrition suffered.

And what was the result? Well school numbers fell drastically (way more spectacularly than ANYTHING Jamie Oliver caused) Cooks left in droves and the standard of meals fell.

Teachers knew it. Heads certainly knew it. The Soil Association knew it. Catering staff and dinner ladies knew it. However most parents didn't. They assumed their children were being fed the sort of the food they had been traditionally served in the past.

When Jamie Oliver revealed this there was an outcry. I won't bore you with the details but suffice to say as a result the government set up The School Food Trust. It did an amazing job in drawing up new nutritional standards and kicking out the confectionery and fizzy drinks from schools that some caterers relied on to make a profit. They were criticised, mocked and ridiculed by some caterers and politicians but they stuck to their guns. They proved that you could serve tasty and healthy school meals that crucially children would eat. I was appointed as a trustee to the board so saw first hand what a great job they were doing. School meals were not all perfect but they were dramatically better than the junk served pre 2005. Anyone who doesn't believe me please look through my archive of photos.

Cue the coalition government. No one expected that they would invest in school meals and push for improvements but few expected they would deliberately try to subvert the excellent work of the last 5 years. The first thing Gove did within days of taking office was to cancel the roll out of free school meals to kids from families under the official poverty line. This money has gone from the mouths of the poor to a fund for academies.

Gove has deliberately chosen to exempt all free schools and more importantly academies from the nutritional standards. He knew it would be deeply unpopular to actively overrule the standards for all schools - there would have been a national outcry with the medical organisations, health charities and food campaigners up in arms. Instead his sly ruling that nutritional standards don't apply to academies means the standards will now be undermined as academy schools grow and grow.

So what should we do? I want the School Food Trust to stand shoulder to shoulder with Jamie Oliver, Local Authority Caterers Asoociation, Food for Life Partnership and The Children's Food Campaign. Michael Gove needs to be told in no uncertain terms to make the nutritional standards applicable to all school.

If they don't then the school food revolution is doomed. I am in the process of writing to all these organisations and I will post up their responses when I get them. We need a bit more solidarity and the above organisations should be working together much more closely.

Update.....

I have now written a short etter to all the above organisations. See below.

Dear friends,

I am writing to you all to ask you to stand shoulder to shoulder with Jamie Oliver.

Refusing to insist that nutritional standards apply to ALL schools is a major threat to the school food improvements we have seen since 2005.

I urge you to write a joint letter to Gove calling on him to apply nutritional standards to ALL schools. If he refuses then start a mass campaign. You will get huge public support with medical organizations, health charities, teachers unions and parents lining up to support you.

Regardless of how tough things are for your organizations at the moment I believe the future of the school meal service depends on this one decision and a failure to stand up to Gove now will have dire consequences on the meals our children will be eating.

If you don’t win this then much of the excellent work you have done in the past will be for nothing.

background info on school meals

School dinners meeting Mid Day Supervisors

View more presentations from Jackie Schneider.

My first school dinner of the new school year

I'm dumped!

Well my time as part of "the great and the good" has come to an end. I am no longer a board member or trustee of the School Food Trust. This government has shown no love toward school dinners and was keen to loose many of the quangos that were associated with the last labour government. The only way for the School Food Trust to survive was to become a community interest company that could bring in funding to replace the government funding. it became clear I have nothing to contribute in this shiny bright new future. I am at heart a campaigner not a salesperson. This has been a very difficult transformation for the Trust. Many talented and committed staff are amongst the casualties.

I want the School Food Trust to survive - primarily as a defender of minimum nutritional standards in schools. It also has amassed vast amounts of expertise for schools and caterers on how to run good quality school meals services that needs to be shared and widely disseminated. If it can generate enough income from local authorities and PCTs ( or wellness boards as they will now be known as) it stands a fighting chance. It is also going to look at providing services to any providers of children's food outside of a school setting.

I got a letter from Mr Gove saying thank you for my efforts but betraying no understanding whatsoever about what this role has entailed. The man has no idea of the numbers of parent's, school cooks and kids I have talked too, the number of school dinners I have eaten and the sheer volume of emails asking for help with school meals I have responded to. But it's not about me.

I am bitterly disappointed with the direction this government is headed in. I am worried sick that they will undo all the great achievements we made under the last government and that our poorest children will once again be made to pay the price of "savings" through crap food.

Finally, I put up a strong fight to get on to the board of The School Food Trust. I am not one of the "usual suspects" that often gets appointed. I did my absolute best to speak up on behalf of free school meal kids. I feel incredibly sad I won't be able to do so in the future. I know that Judy Hargadon and Rob Rees will try their hardest to steer the Trust through troubled waters and I am heartened that Pru Leith will be returning but these are worrying times

High Lawn Primary taking "The Apprentice" approach to school dinners

Here is a Merton primary school dinner I ate last week. I have just been told that High Lawn Primary are setting yr 5 the task of designing a new school dinner menu. Please visit their class blog and give them some ideas and suggestions. I wonder if they know about nutritional standards and the need to balance the menu over a 3 week cycle?

Year 5 at High Lawn

Below is a presentation I have given about the history of school dinners

School food in England

View more presentations from Jackie Schneider

Calling all school cooks past and present

Durhan Universities are doing some research into school dinners. They are really keen to speak to anyone who has worked in a school kitchen since 1970. Ring Vicki on 07984 055590 to find out more!

The bad old days - pre Jamie

I thought it was worth remembering what we used to serve up as school dinner to our kids pre 2005. We have come such a long way since then. Just scroll back through my posts to see pictures of what the kids are eating now. I am looking to feature school food pictures from schools outside of Merton. Please send me a pic of your school dinners at your school! leave me a comment and I will be in touch.

Judy Hargadon awarded an OBE

I was delighted to read this morning that The Chief Executive of The School Food Trust, Judy Hargadon has been given an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List.

I have known Judy personally for the last 6 years since Merton Parents for Better Food in School began to have an impact on getting schools to improve. I personally had a deep suspicion of most civil servants and was very concerned that the majority failed to have a clue about the children's perspective. Judy however understood that we were failing to see the situation from the child's viewpoint.

She is a great strategic thinker and has given the School Food Trust a clear lead. I think she was absolutely right to start by developing school food standards so that we would have a clear regulatory framework which would protect children from being served nutritionally poor food. This was not universally popular and didn't win her many friends but she stuck to her guns.

I was particulary drawn to Judy because of her passion and zeal. For her it was more than a job and she spent many, many hours - way beyond the call of duty ensuring the detail was right. Her attention to detail is phenomenal and has made the SFT what it is today. She has of course been greatly aided by Prue Leith and Rob Rees who also deserve recognition for their roles in improving school food.

Judy has steered the Trust through the culling of the quangos and is busy developing a new way of working.

I personally have grave concerns about this governments commitment to school meals and am ready to go back to campaigning to ensure that our poorest and most vulnerable children are protected.We have won some battles but not the war. Most secondary schools in this country fail to put the nutritional needs of their students before their administrative problems. We are still failing to provide good quality tasty food cheaply and to serve it in a civilised and pleasant environment. Whilst we face appalling rates of rising childhood obesity twinned with rising poverty levels we are creating huge problems for the NHS (and yes, I know Head teachers face huge difficulties but many of them avoid doing anything)

However I am glad Judy will be at the helm of the school food trust continuing to put the needs of the children first and I am delighted that her hard work has been recognised.

All party parliamentary group on school dinners

School dinners is a bit of a niche subject. Health people tend to think of it is an education issue and education folks tend to pigeon hole it as a health issue. It is because it falls between the two that there is a serious danger that it will be overlooked. And we know what happened in the past when it was overlooked.

That's why I think it is really important that we persuade the House of Commons to set up a parliamentary group with MPs from all parties to make sure our school children get the lunches they deserve. Sharon Hodgeson MP already convenes a meeting for everyone interested in school food. We now need some coalition MPs to step up.

Your help needed to keep kids cooking in schools.

Zac Goldsmith MP has set up an early day motion in the House of Commons to persuade the government to keep cooking lessons in secondary schools. Please can you send a quick message to your MP asking them to support this motion. it is really easy as Children's Food Campaign have already done the hard work! Just click on the link below and enter your postcode. It will send an automatic message from you and if your MP is already supporting it will send them a thank you.

Please spare 2 mins to help!

Keep kids cooking in school action

An army of campaigners

Look what those talented, creative and generous staff at Sustain have made me for my last day at Children's Food Campaign - my very own army of campaigners. I am feeling very emotional and overwhelmed by their kindness and support so will keep this brief. I will be back soon to post more about why you should support these incredible people.

Happy Birthday to Sally the Cook!

Many happy returns to our school cook Sally. She does a fantastic job in the kitchen and has a wonderful manner with the children. She is hugely popular with both staff and children alike. Sally works incredibly hard so I think it is time we gave her a big thank you!

Tomato flash grow

The wonderful people at Capital Growth teamed up with B&Q to give away 100,000 tomato plants to Londoners in an attempt to get people food growing. It was extremely popular and streams of workers flooded out of offices to get involved.

Today's school lunch

Prof Sugarman's ideas to reduce obesity rates

I had the opportunity to attend a seminar arranged by The National Heart Forum to hear the law professor Stephen Sugarman explain his approach to reducing diet related deaths in the UK. Put very simply he is called for performance based regulations that sees industry take responsibility for making the changes.

Rather than focusing on individuals to make different choices which are hard to keep up in the face of constant marketing and availability Sugarman suggests legislation which requires retailers and fast food/chain restaurants to reduce the amount of high fat, salt sugar products that they sell, based on industry averages so forward thinking companies don't get penalised.

There would be heavy fines which would give companies a genuine urge to unleash their creativity on how they could reformulate and move into healthier markets with rewards given for successes. Can you imagine what supermarkets and fast food restaurants would look like if they were actually really trying their hardest to shift more furit and veg? We certainly see a lot more appetising fruit displays by the checkouts thats for sure!

Sugarman thinks the fact that there is so few companies who provide the majority of our food would make it much easier to achieve. In addition the barcode technology we have would make this easy to monitor.

He went on to suggest the food industry will absolutely hate the idea and will scream blue murder and rush out more and more voluntary guidelines in an attempt to avoid this. However he promises he is happy to walk away from litigation and lawsuits in return.

What I like about his ideas is that we wouldn't need to micro manage it. If companies had a clear financial incentive to reduce HFSS foods sold year on year they would find innovate and creative ways to do it.

Unfortunately though persuading the government to do it is another matter. This current mob are already jumping to the demands of the food industry. if we do ever get a government that puts the health needs of the population before the profits of a the industry we have some great ideas to discuss. You can have a look at Prof Sugarmans ideas here.

David Cameron visits a secondary school food tech lesson, meanwhile....

Credit:Metro

...Mr Gove has cancelled the very successful "Licence to Cook" project that would have seen every high school student recieve 24 hours of basic food prep and cooking lessons during their key stage 3 years. Schools have spent the last 4 years preparing for these cooking lessons with government money already spent on equipping classrooms and training teachers. This project has been quietly dropped with virtually no media coverage. Many cookery teachers have already lost their jobs.

For years health professionals have argued that unless we halt the decline of cooking skills then many people will feel unable to choose healthier freshly prepared food as they simple lack the skills.

The Children's Food Campaign has led a passionate campaign to keep our kids cooking. If you support it then please sign up to their email list

Today's school dinner.

This is what primary school children in Merton were offered today for lunch.Tasty. My biggest concerns now is how we ensure the lowest paid can still afford them. There is going to be a radical reform of benefits and Children's Food Campaign along with a number of charities are fighting hard to ensure that the poorest in our society still get access to good quality, free school dinners. We are particularly concerned about low paid workers who despite working long hours still fall under the poverty line yet can't afford to buy school meals especially if they have more than one child.