The road to transforming school meals

^{Image credit: Chefs in Schools}

Research shows that a quarter of teachers never eat school lunches. Charity Chefs in Schools discusses what needs to change so that everyone can enjoy and benefit from school meals.

The way to transform the next generation’s health and wellbeing lies in the food and food culture of our schools, but to seize this opportunity a whole school approach is vital, and it includes training your school kitchen teams.

According to research produced by Chefs in Schools and Survation, a quarter of teachers never eat the food on offer at schools, and a mere eight per cent eat school lunches once a week.

The main reason cited for this was quality and choices available.

Yet, we at Chefs in Schools argue that there is an army of talented, skilled chefs working across the country in school kitchens. All that’s needed is training to ensure they can put their skills to good use, and then everyone benefits.

We believe we’ve found a formula to transform the way school food is done that puts it at the heart of a school.

We currently offer training to school kitchen staff and school caterers, whether in-house or outsourced.

It’s specially designed for school kitchen teams to foster a positive food culture. The program covers a wide range of topics, from food waste reduction to child nutrition and compliance with the School Food Standards. It also includes practical skills, like increasing vegetable intake, food education, and creating appealing food displays to encourage healthier choices among children. With an in-person skills workshop and eight short online sessions, it fits in around the school day.

On top of this, Chefs in Schools offers year-long intervention programmes where our chef trainers work onsite, transforming the kitchen and food delivery based on a school’s specific needs. 

Positive outcomes

The benefits of training for schools who invest in their kitchen teams are clear to see, sometimes within as little as a month. This year the charity provided training and support to Parkwood School in Hackney. 

Headteacher Paul Thomas said that before working with Chefs in Schools, each class would line up with their plastic trays, boys would sit together, girls would sit together, and it wasn’t “developing a sense of family”, which is something they wanted at the school.

He said: “Lunch is a key part of the day. If you don’t get it right, half the day will be affected and there’s the long-term impact as well.”

The school had already done a lot to try to change the way school food was done, introducing family style dining themselves, bringing a sense of belonging that wasn’t there previously. But they wanted to go a step further. A month into the initial phase of training, what difference had it made?

Thomas said: “Already the team is more confident. Our three kitchen assistants all want to take turns leading the kitchen one day a week. Lunch is now a positive experience for children and staff to enjoy rather than a job to get done. School food becomes an event rather than a process.”

He added: “We’re hearing that children go home and talk about what they’ve eaten, what they tried and what they liked.”

Investing in people

Investing in kitchen teams can have a transformative effect, not only on the 

quality of food provided, but on the confidence of the team in their work and skills, and on the value placed on school food throughout the school community. The charity is on a mission to create an army of food educators who will prepare 

the next generation for happier, healthier lives. We are also calling for mandatory training on child nutrition, culinary skills, food education and school food standards to be introduced by the new Labour government.

We want the new government to keep junk food out of schools and apply beefed up government buying standards.

Our manifesto also stresses the importance of making colourful, flavourful, nutritious school food the norm, and making it available to every child, regardless of age, location or income.

Chief executive of Chefs in Schools Naomi Duncan said: “Every child deserves the chance to learn about and enjoy real food, especially as for some children, school lunch will be the only meal they eat that day. It’s vital therefore that all schools are providing delicious, nutritious food and ensuring their kitchen teams are supported and trained to put their skills to best use, benefiting the school community.”

To learn more about the training and other services, Chefs in Schools provides to schools across England, visit the link below.