The best place to start from is where you are! Take a look at how food is dealt with in all aspects of school life. Things you might want to consider are:

• Breakfast
  
• Snacking
  
• Lunchtime
  
• In the classroom
  
• Events
  
• Outside of school

Then ask yourself where you want to be. The framework on pages 14-15 can help you to organise the information and ideas.

One of the first ways of looking at the whole school is by speaking to people. Not only will you hear different perspectives on the food and nutrition situation but you will also find out what people feel the obstacles are and how they would like to help. For example, the school secretary may have a particular interest in healthy eating and offer to organise and prepare fruit for a daily fruit tuck shop. Key people to talk to include the caretaker, the catering supervisor, the secretary, each key stage teacher, parents and children. Other than simply talking to them when you bump into them in school corridors, you can invite them along to your SNAG meetings. If you don't have a SNAG you could set up one or two ad hoc meetings at the beginning of the project.

Another way to find out what is going on in the school is by surveying eating patterns, attitudes to food and responses to ideas generated. Children, parents and staff can all be involved in these surveys. For example you may want to:

• Map out eating patterns (breakfast, on the way to school, breaktime, lunchtime, on the way home, snacks at home, evening meal and so on).
  
• Find out about attitudes to food provided in school (school lunch vs. packed lunch, queuing, customer service, need for additional services etc.).
  
• Do 'market research' on different activities to find out which ones will be most popular (for example what fruit would be popular in a fruit tuck shop, what price would people be willing to pay).

Surveys like this can help get everyone involved, promote the project within the school, work out what changes need to be made and evaluate the success of the project. For sample surveys refer to Information bank 8 and visit the Food in Schools programme website, www.foodinschools.org, for an interactive audit tool.

Info bank 8: Do a survey