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School Meals

Answer

Together with the Food Standards Agency and People 1st, the Department has developed a Vocationally Related Qualification (VRQ) at Level 1 in Healthier Catering. It is currently with awarding bodies to arrange for accreditation by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. The qualification should be in place and available for people to start on courses this autumn term. It is intended to give school cooks and caterers the knowledge and skills to deliver a healthier meals service. It has been specifically designed for staff involved in the preparation and service of school meals and it will enable school caterers to improve pupil nutritional intake from all food provided by the school meals service. It will ensure that everyone in the school kitchen aspires to the same high standards.15,791 schools are currently participating in the Healthy Schools Programme. We currently targeting all schools with a 20 per cent. or more free school meals entitlement and aim to recruit the remainder of schools to the programme by 2009.DfES does not collect data on the proportion of schools that provide drinking water to pupils. However, regulations require all local authority maintained schools in England to have a wholesome supply of water for domestic purposes, including drinking water. However, it is for local education authorities, governors and schools to decide how and when drinking water should be made available to pupils.Guidance produced by this Department advises caterers on meeting the requirements of the Government's nutritional standards for school lunches and recommends that drinking water should be made available to all pupils every day, free of charge. In addition, the Healthy Living Blueprint for Schools document suggests that all pupils should have access to drinking water at all times at a number of points around the school, preferably not from taps in toilets. The guidance also suggests that pupils should be permitted to carry water with them and consumption encouraged both in class and during break and lunchtime.DfES does not routinely collect data on schools adherence to statutory school lunch nutritional standards. The responsibility for ensuring that the standards are met rests with local education authorities or, where the budget for school lunches is delegated to them, a school's governing body. Ultimately, the Secretary of State can direct a school to meet the standards where she considers they are failing to do so.As part of the package aimed at improving school lunches, we are looking at a number of ways to strengthen the monitoring of school food:"From September 2005, every school inspection will include an assessment of the school's contribution to the Every Child Matters outcomes. Ofsted will review the quality of school approaches to food as part of their regular school inspections. In addition, Ofsted will be making visits to a number of pilot LEAs and schools in the autumn, working alongside nutritionists to determine the best way to inspect the proposed school meal standards. Once the new standards are in place, Ofsted will sample schools across LEAs to investigate how well they are being used;""Support for healthy eating will be one aspect of children's services Joint Area Reviews at Local Authority level;""Additional requirements for local authorities and school governing bodies to monitor the content of school lunches."Current minimum school lunch standards require all schools to provide food from the fruit and vegetable group on a daily basis. More specifically, primary schools must ensure that both a fruit and a vegetable are provided on a daily basis; a fruit based desert is available at least twice per week; and fresh fruit, fruit tinned in juice or fruit salad is available every day. In secondary schools two foods from the fruit and vegetable group must be available each day, which must include both a fruit and a vegetable.In addition, 16,069, or 97 per cent. of eligible schools (February 2005) benefit daily from the free fruit and vegetables provided by the Government's National School Fruit and Vegetable Scheme.A School Meals Review Panel has been convened to recommend changes to current school lunch standards. The panel's work is expected to produce new draft school lunch standards for secondary schools in September 2005 and for primary schools soon after, both becoming mandatory in September 2006. Once the school lunch standards have been considered the panel will then set about looking at how the standards could apply to other food and drink on school premises, e.g. vending machines and tuck-shops. Any extended standards will need to be enshrined within regulations as are the current standards.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

2085; 434 c476-8W;434 c478-80W

Session

2005-06

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Subjects

Catering Drinking water Fruit Qualifications Nutrition Standards Schools School meals School fruit and vegetable scheme

Contains statistics

Yes