Guest post: 'Offering every infant child a healthy school meal has just become a reality'

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With school cooks, head teachers and caterers gathered in Whitehall to celebrate the launch of 'Universal Free School Meals' last night, the deputy prime minister pointed out in his speech of thanks, that we don't need university based studies and hoards of scientists telling us what we intuitively know - that school children work better in the afternoon with a healthy, balanced lunch in their tummies versus a jam sandwich and sugary drink.

But the good thing about the free school meals is that, actually, we do have the research to prove just that, in the form of a pilot study carried out in Durham and Newham between 2009 and 2011.

It showed that children who were given healthy, free school lunches were two months ahead academically compared with their contemporaries, as well as revealing an almost 25% increase in vegetables being eaten, an 18% reduction in crisps and a fall in consumption of sugary drinks.

The lunches also led to children eating together. Socialising around the lunch table. Trying new foods. Experiencing new tastes. Having a go with new textures.

Universal free school meals for primary school children were a key recommendation in the independently produced School Food Plan, published by Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent in July last year.

To the astonishment of most people in the ‘business’ of delivering school dinners - from the civil servants to the school cooks, the local authorities to the head teachers - together they have virtually pulled off this vision for children from reception through to the end of year two.

However, many questions have been raised. Questions like ‘why stop at year 2?’, ‘how do we know standards will be kept up?’, and 'what about the hundreds of schools who haven't been able to get the service up and running?’ In spite of much-hyped horror stories of teachers trekking to the local pub to buy in sandwiches, the vast majority of schools are on board and able to offer free school meals, and for those who are struggling, a further £150m and a dedicated support service has been set up to offer advice and help to make the grade.

And now that the majority have signed up, the task is to maintain standards. How do we stop schools going off-piste? This will partly be down to parent-power, but from January, school cooks will be preparing lunches to comply with food-based regulations such as limiting fried foods and pastry-based foods to twice a week and using low fat milk.

These food-based regulations are much easier for cooks and parents to understand. If, as a parent, you look at the school lunch menu and think ‘hang on, there are more chips and chocolate sponge pudding on the menu than there should be’, then you can go to your school and lobby to get things on track.

People have questioned why parents who can afford to pay for school lunches should benefit - isn't it a waste of money? I don't think so. Beyond the fact that parents who are struggling will no longer be landed with a £400 bill every year, the scheme means that everyone - whether their parents could afford that bill or not - is eating and enjoying food together.

A friend of mine's little girls tried school lunches for the first month in reception last year. A combination of being frightened by the size and system in the dining room - as lots of reception children are - and her best friend having sandwiches in another part of the hall meant she was crying into a jacket potato most days, eating virtually nothing and falling out of school at 3.20pm white as a sheet and with her concentration levels long since blown to smithereens.

Now, her best friend is having the free school lunch, which in turn has given my friend's daughter the confidence to have them too. This is great for her, but also good for the school lunch system - now she's in it, she’s likely to stay in it, and be a crucial ‘customer’ to the end of her school years.

The bottom line is this: we know that a healthy school lunch can improve a child’s academic performance - and we also know that, according to research, only 1% of packed lunches meet the nutritional guidelines that currently apply to school foods. Having everyone eat together can also help embed social skills around the dining table. The goal to offer every infant child a healthy, tasty school meal has just become a reality, and surely this should be celebrated.

But the lunches often arn't healthy at all, it doesn't matter what they look like on paper, it's what the children actually eat.

A friend of mine took up the offer and for the last few days her daughter has had sweet corn and an enormous pudding every single day for lunch. Not surprisingly my friend has decided to go back to packed lunches next week.

I wouldn't dream of sending mine with 'a jam sandwich and a fizzy drink', how bloody presumptuous, I also would ever and then with a huge pudding every day, which every school meal seems to feature, hilariously our school wouldn't ALLOW you to include a chocolate muffin in a packed lunch, but they are on the school menu this week?

Mine will stay on packed lunches throughout their school career :)

Blocks has it, I have a child in year two, we thought we would try the free meals.

First day back today and he had a in a white bun, chips and beans and ice cream for pudding.

Really healthy... In a packed lunch he would have had wholesale bread with tuna or ham. Cucumber and carrot sticks or pepper and a piece of fruit and something like a home made scone ie cheese and courgette or pear ans cinnamon cake.

Agree with what GobblersKnob said.

The menu for my DS's new school is not healthy, and includes a sweet sponge/cake type pudding every day.

To me, "free meals" usually equals low-quality meals. So I will send him in with a packed lunch full of healthy, nutritious food that I know he'll actually eat.

Grr bollocks has it...

Btw all the kids at the madthings School eat together whether packed lunch or school dinner so introducing free School meals makes bugger all difference to that.

Sorry but I think there are far better things they could spend the money on, free school meals for those who need it great and then how about they focus in making sure classes have enough ta's, on early intervention for children with special needs and make sure they get the help they need. Smaller class sizes for all kids and make sure schools are well equipped etc. Not waste money on free dinners for all.

What a load of bollocks. We all know that 'healthy school meals' are carbs, sweet corn and some kind of pudding. Or sometimes just cold broccoli and a flapjack thing.

Why doesn't it say who the "guest" poster is?

Where I am (NI) this policy has bit been implemented but having looked at the school dinner menu I doubt it would be a healthy alternative.

Aside from that why just for two years? Is none of the "evidence" relevant after that age?

My kids went to a great infant school with its own kitchen and they made great meals.
Then they closed the school

It's not exactly a new concept.

If they were healthy meals make I would be happy.

I haven't taken up the offer as at my dcs school as it's crap prepared at a factory offsite.

I'm not sure a regulation to use low fat milk will improve the standards.

Is this a 'guest' from a or company?

My 5yo ate a baked potato as her fsm today. Just that. Oh and some cake.

So I'm thrilled, obviously.

All those cuts before this? The ones that leave really vulnerable individuals and families completely screwed over? Yeah. Don't care about those now she's had a free jacket potato.

Sorry, appear to have cone over with a severe case of Rage at this patronising twaddle.

So ragey it's typo filled. Oh well.

Children need some fat in their diet, not chips every day, but full fat dairy is appropriate for small children.

Why should parents have to 'lobby' their local school to have healthy food? It isn't rocket science and is the job of those doing the catering.

My GS told me proudly today that he had eaten all his (free) lunch at school. He had a slice of pizza, chips and a blueberry muffin. Very healthy.

My DIL will be sending him off with a packed lunch next week.

Shame the school is being given less money per meal than it costs to provide. Which means that 50p per child per day has to be found from the school budget, where it would otherwise have been spent on learning resources.

It's such a shame that 'experts' really don't trust parents to provide adequate meals for their children.

I have no access to the 1% study but I am pretty sure that the survey was deeply flawed.

It's fabulous in some ways to not have to worry about making a lunch. But I did use to be able to check what they had eaten by looking in their lunch box and I could then adjust our evening meal accordingly.

It is hard to know now what to do for tea as I can't expect the school to give me a heads up on the nutritional content of what my child ate. He couldn't remember what he had eaten today, aside from the toffee ice-cream.

However, towards the end of your post you raised points I had not thought of before, such as the enrichment found in the shared experience of everyone eating together. If schools are able to provide some happy banquet type experience everyday, that sounds rather splendid. I'm going to ponder that point a little more.

Out of interest, what happens in the top private and public schools? Not boarding schools.

My ds had pizza yesterday with a cookie for after. Today he's had a tuna sandwich with a cookie. No fruit or yoghurt. I'll be buying a new lunchbox at the weekend and he's going back to a healthy packed lunch.

At private schools mandatory school lunches are common. They are still frequently grim. Usual options of hot meat, hot veggie, jacket potato or salad - I regularly ate jacket potato with hoops and cheese because I didn't want third-outing chicken now curryified. Or rice, a boiled egg and some salad.
So okay but not actually healthy for a growing child/teenager.

IME they are very similar to state primary provision, but battered fish and chips on a Friday only.

My dd must be very lucky! This week she has had pasta with cheese sauce cabbage, brocolli, salad and bread rolls, chicken, potatoes, pudding and custard , fruit and yoghurt. Came home and told me she loved hot food..,

A quiet child, I would probably have sent her with the security if packed lunches.

the trouble is that the menu bears little relation to what the children actually get/eat and so although they sound appetising the actual food produced can be very different.

Roast pork with stuffing, roast pots, mash, cabbage, carrots sounds lovely and I'm sure it would be if we all cooked it at home. The reality however is a single thin slice of pork rolled into a cigar shape, two small potatoes or a scoop of mash and soggy veg that very few of the children actually let the cooks put on their tray let alone eat.

it is not unusual to see a child with dry meat without gravy, potatoes and a slice of bread followed by a pudding. The salad bar is there but very few seem to take anything from it. On pasta days many children seem to have pasta with say meatballs (3 tiny ones) and no sauce.

I know that it makes life easier in overstretched dinner halls to have serving trays for the meal rather than plates but again this means that the food goes cold really quickly.

Finally, there is no time in most primary schools for a relaxed dining experience-there are too many children to get through the hall in too short a time so the midday supervisors have to hurry the children along

I can see where the idea of universal free lunches came from and I know the intent is good but in my opinion the money could have been much better spent elsewhere

I think this post is so misguided and far from reality for most of us it could have been written by a politician.

Packed lunches are jam sandwiches and a carton of juice? Mine sometime takes jam sandwiches (not mostly but sometimes and always on wholemeal bread) as well as cheese and cream crackers, organic yoghurt, fruit, homemade flapjack or carrot cake plus carrot and cucumber batons. This is all far healthier than what is actually served up in school.

Just the guest blogger knows my ds is not falling behind academically. He's currently amongst the top performing students in his year.

Adding more, I like giving ds a packed lunch. He comes home, we do an hour of play (park with friends, swimming, trampoline) and we cook a proper evening meal together, we all eat together at the dining table and talk about our day. There's also regular reading and spelling homework.

Dd2 (6) this week:

She had pasta, beans'n'cheese followed by a biscuit on Tuesday.

Yesterday she was able to have chicken, veg, mash & fruit salad, so I'm relatively happy with that, although it's a good job she's stopped being vegetarian over the summer, or it would have been quiche & mash.

Today she had cheese pie, gravy, bread (?), sweetcorn & rice pudding.

Her elder siblings had packed lunches consisting of a Quorn ham sandwich, pot of cucumber/pepper/carrot sticks, Babybel, yoghurt, jelly with mandarins, & a carton of juice - I'm not suggesting this is some sort of Superlunch! - but I fail to be convinced that dd2 has benefited by swapping her perfectly OK pack-up for the school carbfest.

Also, she has two parents in full-time professional employment. I'd rather they increased the FSM threshold & gave dd2's unappreciated lunch to a child in Year 3 whose family actually need the provision.

This is such bollocks. Not only is it bollocks but it totally fails to take account of the very real problems schools are facing in implementing this. They don't have the space, they don't have the kitchens, they don't have the staff. It all costs money and the money isn't there.

DD is Y3 this year but I have seen and tasted the school meals (which sound great on paper) and in no way would I be happy for her to eat them. Instead, she gets a sandwich of something like sardines or cheese or egg or chicken on wholemeal bread, fruit/veg (usually both), a yoghurt, and a few oatcakes in case she is still hungry. How is this unhealthy compared to the genuinely minging school dinner alternative? I don't believe the 1% thing. I think it's made up. I'd like to see what the guidelines are and the research.

And low fat milk for infants is just plain stupid. THE VITAMINS IN MILK ARE ALL IN THE FATTY BIT!

I'm totally against the move too. Round here, there are too many children in their million pound houses (or those best part of) entitled to free school meals because they're in year 1/2 etc, whereas there are children a few miles up the road in a much poorer area who won't get FSM because the children are too old.

Like a previous poster, I think we should stop wasting money giving little rich kids free school meals when their parents are more than able to do so themselves, and instead use the money to help those who need it, or who have suffered in recent years from the tax cut backs.

Waste of money IMHO.

I'm also sick to death of the relentless lunchbox (ie mother) bashing.

There are big money-spinning contracts out there as a result of this policy. Funny that.

Ha ha ha this is the comedy post isnt it? I work in a school, the meals are shipped in and look unappertising. Very few children eat the soggy veg and theres no time forchildren to socialise as we rush them through the hall.

I certainly wouldn't let my children have them