Tick off Bronze, Silver and Gold for... Increasing school meal take-up

19 July 2011 – If you’re seeing a rise in your school meal take-up figures, you could be ticking off the Bronze, Silver AND Gold criteria.

Criteria

Bronze: We monitor school meal take-up and we are taking action to maximise the take-up of free school meals
Silver: We ensure take-up of school meals by pupils registered for free school meals is 90% or higher, and we are taking action to raise general school meal take-up.
Gold: Our take-up of school meals is over 60% OR has increased by more than 20% since we enrolled with the Food for Life Partnership.

Resources

Find out what the staff, pupils and parents think of school meals at your school with these sample questionnaires.

Case study

The Oval primary school in Birmingham saw a significant increase in their school meal take-up after deciding to offer a free school meal, paid for by the school, to the new intake of pupils for the first two weeks in September.

Rachel Chahal, headteacher at The Oval, says: "Before joining the Food for Life Partnership, 18 out of 60 pupils in reception ate school meals– now 56 pupils out of 60 are having school meals.

“The Food for Life Partnership is something we do everyday. The children talk about food in assemblies; they’re ordering food from the cook, saying what they like. It’s a question of deciding what your priority is and allocating funds in those areas. The Food for Life Partnership is our priority - it’s where I choose to put the funds."

Read the case study.

BBC Best Dinner Lady / Caterer Award

The BBC is looking for cooks ‘who make mealtimes in our schools a delight’. "We're looking for tasty and healthy food prepared on the premises with fresh, carefully sourced ingredients, particularly in our less celebrated institutions."

The deadline for entries is midnight on 14 August, and the winning school will be feature on BBC’s Radio 4’s The Food Programme as well as BBC local radio. For more information visit the BBC website.