Healthy school food safeguards removed for a further 50,000 children

Responding to today’s announcement that the government will build 100 new free schools and academies, creating an additional 50,000 new school places, Malcolm Clark, co-ordinator of the Children’s Food campaign, said:

“As things stand, pupils who attend these new schools won’t automatically get the benefits of the food and nutrition standards which have become the foundation for good school food practices across England.” 

“Unless the Education Secretary, Michael Gove, reverses his retrograde decision to exempt academies and free schools from the standards, there’s a real risk that these new schools will join the growing number of academies which have reintroduced confectionery and fatty, sugary or salty snacks to the detriment of the health of their children.”

“These will also be some of the first schools built under the new stripped-down school building regulations, which no longer stipulate kitchen and dining room requirements, or the amount of outdoor space for exercise activities. We’re concerned about the potential double-whammy this might have on the ability of these schools to provide appetising, nutritious food and promote healthier lifestyles to their pupils.”

Notes:

1. In February the Children’s Food Campaign, came together with the Jamie Oliver Foundation, LACA, Food for Life Partnership and School Food Matters to launch the Save Our School Food Standards (SOSFood) campaign. We have been calling for academies and free schools to be required to comply with the same mandatory standards for school food currently safeguarding the quality of food available in maintained schools. www.sosfood.org.uk

2. The government has commissioned a review of school food – the School Food Plan – headed by restaurateurs Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent. http://www.education.gov.uk/schoolfoodplan

3. Together with our SOSFood campaign partners, we have submitted a joint response to the School Food Plan, setting out the evidence for why we need to protect the investment already made in children’s health and wellbeing by ensuring mandatory school food standards apply to all schools. As our submission makes clear, standards are one of a number of important pieces of the school food puzzle but we believe that mandatory minimum standards represent the foundations of any school food provision. As a minimum, mandatory standards protect children from unhealthy food that will have an adverse effect on their ability to learn. At best, standards provide the catalyst for schools to be ambitious and embed excellence in school food and food education.

4. School Food Trust’s 2012 survey of academies found nine out of every ten surveyed were selling at least one of the snack foods high in sugar, salt or fat that have been banned from vending machines in other state schools.

5. In November 2012 LACA published results of its survey of 12,000 parents, which found that 92.3% of parents wanted schools to adhere to the standards and 92.1% thought there should be an independent body to monitor them. 

6. Details of the changes made to school building regulations are documented in this article.