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.