Chips are down for school dinners
Hargrave Park Primary School
held a healthy lifestyle event in the school playground last Thursday (29
September) for parents and pupils of the school.
The children were treated to free fruit, a bouncy castle, a display by
Islington’s fire fighters and various educational stalls on healthy living,
including dental hygiene, exercise and blood pressure.
Fruit and vegetables were also on sale, thanks to volunteers that run a fruit
and vegetable stall every week at the school for members of the local
community, Hargrave Park parents and their families.
Hargrave Park has recently implemented a whole school healthy meals policy and
has worked closely with school meals contractor Scolarest to improve the
quality of school meals on offer at lunchtimes.
Over half the schools across the borough are piloting a step-change to
introduce more fresh vegetables, and more meals cooked in the schools’
kitchens. It also includes limiting the number of times that chips are on the
menu.
Councillor James Kempton, Executive Member for Children said: ‘The school
meals service provided by Scolarest has rightly come in for a lot of
criticism, particularly over the quality of their food. What has impressed me
is the steps that we have been taking together over recent months to put
things right. The School Meals Improvement Plan which we put in place last
term is beginning to show some encouraging changes for the better. The latest
survey of headteachers shows that they believe there has been an improvement
in both the content and delivery of school meals, with 67% now rating the
service as satisfactory or better. The introduction of more school-cooked
dishes and better quality vegetables has met with widespread approval. We
surveyed 820 pupils and 78% scored their school meals as average or better.
‘Despite achieving some dramatic headlines, the amount of additional cash
actually delivered by the government is hampering our efforts. We have been
investing around £100,000 more across just over half of the schools, whereas
the Government is telling us that this amount is all we are getting to improve
meals in all schools in the Borough. And the extra grants being given to
schools - roughly £2.50 per pupil per year is hardly going to make much
difference when it comes to improving school meals either. We are going to
have to make some tough choices to find the extra cash we need from existing
school budgets and we will be working with schools on this over this term.
‘We've made a positive start, but we are under no illusion that there is an
awful lot more to be done.’
Even though school meals are currently in the spotlight, the issue of
children’s nutrition is far more elaborate than just a weekday, lunch-time
meal. Islington Council is carrying out a scrutiny review into the nutrition
of Islington’s children called ‘Children Eating Well’.
Councillor Marisha Ray, leading the Scrutiny Review into Children Eating Well,
said: ‘Improving the nutrition of Islington's children requires better school
meals and a lot more besides. Healthy Living days in schools which involve
parents and promote healthy eating are a great example of the type of activity
that we are considering under the Children Eating Well review.’
For more information, please contact CEA@Islington's Communications Department: