A new era for school food begins

Children's Food Campaign's beginning of the school year e-bulletin to supporters - Sept 2014

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A new era for school food begins

This past week has been a momentous week for the health and education of our nation’s children:

• 1.5million more 4-7 year olds have started receiving free school meals.
• Schools have started teaching the new national curriculum, which includes cooking & food education for Key Stages 1-3.
• Caterers have started implementing the revised school food standards, which become mandatory for all maintained schools and new academies from January.

Our campaign successes this summer

• Aldi have become the third major supermarket to commit to remove all sweets and chocolates from their checkouts, and replace them with healthier items.
• CitizensUK – the powerful alliance of local community organising groups –   has chosen our sugary drinks duty / Children’s Future Fund campaign as their main health policy ask for the General Election. Together with us, they have some innovative grassroots lobbying activities planned from the party conference season through to next May. 
• The new hospital food standards announced last Friday, whilst still not being as ambitious as we would like or backed up by legislation, do at least include sections on improving the healthiness of the staff and visitor food environment, and give us something to base future campaigning on.  Our Sustain colleagues the Campaign for Better Hospital Food have been leading the work on patient food, drawing on the successful campaigning on school meals standards.

All this, and our campaigning on junk food marketing with the British Heart Foundation and others continues apace too.

The Free School Meals revolution

On 3rd September  I attended a reception in Whitehall to celebrate the successful launch of universal infant free school meals. And celebrate we should.  From day one over 98% of primary schools in England are estimated to be serving a hot meal to their reception, year 1 and year 2 classes.  That is a tremendous achievement for all the schools, caterers and support organisations – LACA, the Children’s Food Trust, Food for Life Partnership, the School Food Plan, School Food Matters and many others – involved.
 
But the week got even better. The Liberal Democrats’ have just announced a manifesto pledge to extend universal free school meal provision to all primary school children by 2019.  We welcome this pledge, and hope that each of the main parties mirror this commitment, as a minimum, and also ensure that the school meals served are nutritious and high quality.
 
The Liberal Democrats join an ever-growing movement of children’s charities, health professionals, academics, head teachers, school caterers and parents in recognising that all primary children should be eligible for a free school meal. The combination of the benefits of universal healthy free school meals – in improving behaviour and attainment in the classroom, the health and wellbeing of children, and in improving the economies of scale for school kitchens – is a winning one.

However, there are many thousands of children aged 8 and upwards living in poverty who are currently not eligible for a free school meal. And there is a big gap at the start of the day in terms of provision of school breakfasts too.

In addition, parents need confidence that the school meals served are nutritious and high quality.  That is why we will continue to campaign to ensure that the food served in all schools is properly monitored (here’s looking at you, Ofsted!) and that, in lieu of a change in the legislation, which we hope political parties will advocate in their manifestos, pressure is kept up on all academies and free schools to meet the new food standards.

Send us your pics

Do keep engaging with us on Facebook and Twitter (or just plain old email) – sending us your pics of good and bad practices, junk food marketing aimed at kids, food industry involvement in schools etc. At the moment we are collecting examples of Back to School promos for / linked with junk food.

Support our work

As ever, we operate on a small budget, and welcome any financial support you can give to help us keep on campaigning at the sharp end and bringing together as wide a coalition of organisations championing children’s food and health.

DONATE here
 
Many thanks,

Malcolm Clark
Co-ordinator, Children’s Food Campaign
 
PS It’s Sourdough September! The Real Bread Campaign goes on a mission to help everyone discover that: life’s sweeter with sourdough!

PPS If you live in London, look out for Urban Food Fortnight events and special offers near you 12th-28th September. Urban Food Fortnight is a chance to celebrate the fabulous ultra-local produce being grown, produced and cooked on London's doorstep.