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.

In one week the vegetarian meals at the school DS will be going into include cheese and onion pasty, cheese and onion lattice (so a pasty with less pasty) and pizza.

Now one of them in the course of a week ok but 3 days out of 5? Not so good IMO

My dd has had the free lunches for two days now. The first day she had sausage roll, yesterday she had a cheese and ham panini. I'm not convinced.

Lots of schools only have half an hour for lunch.

it looks like the OP has legged it! perhaps HQ should ensure that any 'guest poster' is prepared to stick around and answer questions!

I'm a supply teacher so see lots of cafeterias in lots of different primary schools.

No way would I eat that sludge and I wouldn't make my kids eat it either. It's revolting. And served on prison trays - what happened to crockery? It's like feeding pigs at a trough.

If the free school meals were actually tasty and healthy then yes, great idea.

As it stands I wouldn't feed that shit to my dog.

Already issues here too! My DH went and asked the headteacher about some of the options. For example one day the veggie option is described as 'cheese snack' which could describe anything from mini baby bel to dairylea dunkers. This was put as a main course. It turned out it might be a cheese pasty, so just cheese and pastry something which would never be fed to my DS at home as it is unhealthy. This is served with more carbs and only carrots as a vegetable (I don't count baked beans). The vegetarian offering is distinctly worse on days where the halal option is served so I can only assume that more money is being spent on that so something has to give.

My DH is going in a week on Monday to see what the dinners are actually like and he does have very high standards. He comes from a country where food is of a very high standard and held in great importance. I'll admit the menu does not meet even my lowest standards and I suspect even the healthier options are not cooked to a standard I would deem healthy.

The headteacher was surprised we had taken an interest. I know we're not paying now but we are indirectly through taxes etc.

We always make sure he has a healthy main meal at home anyway so we're treating it as being akin to only having a packed lunch anyway.

Agree with most of the posters saying that the puddings are highly unhealthy but at least there is an option of fruit. Although I'm highly sceptical of their claim that the ice-cream is home-made (I think it's highly likely to be from a catering brand)!

I would be highly sceptical if a school advertised "homemade" ice cream. All the schools in my area don't even have a proper kitchen. A few microwaves, a deep fat fryer and a warming drawer does not a kitchen make.

regulations limiting the amount of fried and pastry-based food and ONLY USING LOW FAT MILK. WTF? What the hell is wrong with full fat milk? In fact, I think it is wrong to give children low fat milk! Or yogurt or cheese! Totally agree with limiting fried and pastry based food though.

My main concern and already this has cropped up on mumsnet a lot, is that parents will stop cooking proper evening meals as their children are supposedly getting a main meal at school. They can't know that (ie their child might just pick out the chips and leave everything else), and also the source of the food and nutritional value could be very very varied. So I think this will lead to kids who previously at least got an evening meal now having sandwiches at night!

I agree with many posters here. The lunch served at DD's school I wouldn't give to a dog. Truly disgusting. Overcooked. Unbalanced menu with a LOT of stodge.

This blogger doesn't have a clue about the reality of what most school lunches consist of.

I think we can assume that most parents who are happy to put fizzy drinks and chocolate bars in their children's lunchbox regularly are the sort of parents who don't provide an enriched home learning environment, and might have had a similarly lax attitude to drugs/smoking/alcohol in pregnancy etc, therefore it's not very surprising this particular group of children underperform at school. And is this not the group of parents more likely to be found in the low income brackets and thus eligible for free school meals in the first place (as a generalisation of course as many low income parents are very motivated by the welfare of their children in all respects.) The government would perhaps have been able to save money and reach a large proportion of this target audience by simply widening the eligibility criteria for free school meals.

My child's packed lunches were much more nutritious than the school dinners are. She always had a sandwich with a healthy filling, carrot sticks, salad, fruit, home made granola bars, yogurt, etc, and sugar free juice or water. Although some will argue the artificial sweeteners in sugar free juice are potentially harmful I have seen the damage sugary juice drinking has done to other people's children's soft baby teeth.

Not only that but now I have no idea how much she is eating as I cannot check her lunch box or enquire why she did not eat such and such, and thus I have no idea how much nutrition she is actually taking in from her school lunches, and I know that if she is being forced to eat food that she doesn't like because of the limited menu options she will almost always choose not to eat at all and thus her concentration in class will suffer. This is fairly normal behaviour for many children.

Also, the school offers a choice between a cake/sweet desert and a piece of fruit, not a fruit salad, and certainly they do not offer slightly more expensive fruits like strawberries, mango, grapes or blueberries that I would happily provide in her lunch box and which children prefer for their sweetness, instead they offer a single apple, or a pear. What does one think the average child is going to choose in this scenario?

A pot of natural yogurt and granola would be healthier than a cake!

As somebody has said above, why are parents not allowed, or discouraged from providing sweets in lunch boxes but schools, with the governments backing, are permitted to provide this with school dinners and call it 'healthy'? My child has never, ever had cake at lunch time even at home!

Even more significantly, her school is limited in hall space and has reduced the eating time to 20 minutes per child. She is being told to rush her food. My child is a slow, careful eater. This is better for digestion so it is not something I would complain about. She does not get an opportunity to finish her meal therefore.

Also, as for the cultural obsession with 'hot meals', it was my belief based on research that cooking food, particularly vegetables, reduces the nutritional content. My child came home complaining of 'soggy carrots' and 'mushy peas'. My child will not eat many cooked vegetables, but she will eat raw ones, i.e carrot sticks. And she loves salad which has not so far been an option.

Most schools already have a healthy lunch box policy. I would suggest this initiative has something more to do with attempting to save parents money in lieu of the removal of child benefit for higher income earners than it has to do with nutrition. Perhaps a more effective measure, if the government is concerned about healthy eating, would be for the government to just give families with young children vouchers for money off fruit (which can be very expensive) and veg if they are so concerned about healthy eating? But then, people on low incomes would be benefiting twice over, through gaining access to affordable fruit AND getting free school meals. This would not really be a bad thing, as people on low incomes have to keep these expensive luxury items to a minimum on their shopping list, thus limiting the range of meals they can cook. Their children grow up having limited experience of fruit and veg and might grow up therefore to be unadventurous and less healthy eaters. While carrots and parsnips are cheap, a red pepper is 80p for one in most supermarkets. A packet of blueberries is about 2.99, this is true for most fruit with the exception of apples perhaps.

The only benefit of this scheme to most parents is that it is not compulsory.

I suspect that the people this scheme is really targeted at will probably maintain their children in school dinners as it is more affordable, and that many of those who were previously providing healthy school lunches and can afford to continue to do so will switch back to doing so as the less healthy elements of the school dinners, and well overcrowding, becomes an issue. In this respect, the scheme will succeed in that all children will be getting an adequate amount of nutrition (unless of course, the children accustomed to fizzy drinks and chocolate bars demand a packed lunch anyway because they find the school dinners intolerable). However currently, children who were already getting healthy school lunches are now having less healthy ones generally via the school kitchens, but these were not the children who were suffering at school previously, and of course they are likely to be also getting adequate nutrition at home. I think therefore that this is the merit of the scheme, but I think it is wrong to take patronising tone to suggest that ALL children will benefit nutritionally from this scheme when some will do worse by it even if their parents' pockets benefit from it. A sizeable proportion were already provided with very healthy school lunches. It is not acceptable to take a patronising tone towards all parents regarding lunch boxes or suggesting there are 'better outcomes' for children due to eating school meals when this is simply a highly inaccurate generalisation that probably only applies to children attending schools in the most deprived areas.

We are in Scotland where free meals start in January so thought I would give you my view.

At the moment a fair number of children do take meals and we do have a "menu" that the children choose from at the beginning of the week that runs over the whole council area. This is good with younger kids as you can choose at home what you know they will eat and it speeds things up - they get a coloured band to wear with their lunch choice.

Puddings are still cakes and biscuits though. My daughter can't eat egg so usually has to ask for an alternative of fruit and they drag something up for her, usually a wrinkly apple or orange.

They do offer a cup of homemade soup as a starter which is popular and have a reasonable choice of good main courses (Fish and chips, Macaroni Cheese and Steak Pie are highlights) with only a few pizza and hot dog type things and no pasties.

My girls tell me the school meals are ok but can be a bit bland and no where near as nice as yours mummy - (polishing my cooking halo !)

We have no policy on packed lunches and they are not policed in any way.

I have attached a link to the menu if you are nosy >>

www.falkirk.gov.uk/services/schools-education/school-life/docs/school-meals/1-primary-schools/Primary%20School%20menu.pdf?v=201408131410

Where are you OP?

I know that journalists come on to bate MNetters from time-to-time, but this is condoned by being a guest post. What's that all about?

Who is this guest post even written by? Why does it read like pure government propaganda?

Why on earth do they serve nutritionally void white wheat AKA macaroni, with more nutritionally void white wheat AKA garlic bread. With yet more nutritionally void white wheat AKA sponge on one day and call it healthy? It's a recipe for IBS, constipation etc

Low fat milk? Kids need full-fat dairy!

My boys are both in KS1 at the same school. They started the school term yesterday and were given a slice of pizza with a side of bare pasta with orange jelly for dessert. Today it was fish fingers, chips and beans with a cupcake for dessert. How does this fit in with the healthy eating agenda?

My DD starts reception this year and I am feeling really positive about her having school lunches. She has many issues around food and I've struggled to get her to eat anything healthy or not her whole life. She will only tolerate a few foods and I try and introduce new foods to her slowly and carefully. We've seen doctors, therapists about this. I've researched and read everything about it and have tried ALL aproaches.
She was a reflux baby and I think she has an issue with eating in general perhaps from the memory of the related pain.
She has had packed lunches for 2 years at nursery and will not eat any cold food. Refuses any type of sandwich and will only eat fruit, crackers for lunch and sometimes not those even. I've tried food flasks but she wouldn't eat from them..
So she has managed a full day with just a drink and a biscuit for a long time..Obviously I give her a hot meal when she comes home and an evening snack too to fill her up.
I think school lunches will be great for her-encouraging her to choose her meal, eat and see others eating similar foods.
There are a lot of posts saying how pizza, ice cream are bad choices compared to their homemade lunches but we have spent years trying to get DD to have those foods. There is calcium at least in the cheese and ice cream! I worry as my DD has so little calcium in her diet as she won't eat cheese, yogurt etc even chocolate desserts etc. so if she ate pizza and ice cream I would be pleased.
Think yourselves really lucky your children will eat what you give them because you are. I used to imagine the lovely meals and packed lunches Id make my DD and it breaks my heart her fear of food.

Belle your situation sounds very difficult. Have you seen a school meal recently? I'm sorry to say, but even kids who like fruit and veg etc would struggle to enjoy overcooked, grey veggies and wrinkly fruit, with "hot" food served lukewarm.

Like others have said, it would be a great idea if the food were decent. But unfortunately with the kinds of budget schools have to work to the food just isn't fit for purpose

I've just googled - the typical budget is 37p per child. Even with economies of scale, that seems shockingly low to me.

Bellaboyd. I think you are happy your child has the opportunity to eat a hot meal. Surely you would prefer they had a healthy meal placed in front of them at lunch time. I think it's grasping at straws to see nutritional benefits in ice cream. Of course there is dairy in it but what else - a whole heap of sugar and fat.

As responsible adults, we should be teaching our children to embrace a culture of healthy eating because the fall out is huge in adulthood. The NHS spends a huge part of its budget on diabetes already. How will training young children to have a culture of eating puddings and crap DAILY effect the diabetes figures long term?

Boyd where is your child on the percentile scale. Having two children just slightly under the bottom of the percentile chart myself (and two near the middle percentiles), I'm relaxed about the amount they eat. Despite being slight mine are bright eyed, healthy and full of energy. I still only place healthy food in front of them because as a parent I am responsible for their educating them and establishing their own personal food culture which they will carry with them into adulthood. Their food culture will seriously effect their health in a positive or negative way.

Sorry didn't mean to sound harsh Boyd.

37p!!!!