Food for Life Partnership

• BRONZE criteria & guidance
• SILVER criteria & guidance
• GOLD criteria & guidance

BRONZE criteria & guidance

Food Leadership and School Food Culture

Question
Our School Nutrition Action Group has led a review of food culture in our school, and actions have been agreed
We monitor school meal take up and we are taking action to maximise the take up of free school meals
We consult with our pupils and parents on school meal improvements
We keep parents informed of lunch menus and Food for Life Partnership activity and invite them to attend our school lunches
We encourage our pupils to suggest improvements to the dining experience and we implement the best ideas
Our lunchtime supervisors promote a calm and positive dining experience and help our pupils with food choices
We have made a commitment to phase out flight trays
Free drinking water is provided for our pupils throughout the school day

Food quality and provenance

(delivered in partnership with our caterer)

Question
Food on our menu does not contain any undesirable additives or hydrogenated fats
We make sure that at least 75% of dishes on our menu are freshly prepared
We use meat that is farm assured as a welfare minimum. We use eggs from cage-free hens
Our menus are seasonal and we highlight in-season produce
Our menus cater well for all dietary needs in the school population
Professional development is available to our catering staff, including training in fresh food preparation
A member of our catering staff has been encouraged to get involved in food education activities

Food education

Question
We use the topic of healthy and sustainable food as a theme for assemblies
Our pupils have the opportunity to take part in cooking activities, and this is linked to wider learning
Our pupils have the opportunity to grow and harvest food and make compost, and this is linked to wider learning
We organise an annual farm visit, and this is linked to wider learning

Community and Partnerships

Question
We hold an annual event on a food theme for our pupils, parents and the wider community
We make efforts to actively engage parents and/or the wider community in our growing and cooking activities
We share Food for Life Partnership learning with local schools, the wider community and other partners

Food Leadership and School Food Culture

Our School Nutrition Action Group has led a review of food culture in our school, and actions have been agreed

A School Nutrition Action Group (SNAG) is a school-based alliance that works to review and improve the school food service and adopt a truly whole school approach to food education and culture.
The focus of your SNAG goes beyond school lunches to include practical food education for pupils and how to involve the wider community. Key areas for the group to consider are food, sustainability and healthy eating. Feel free to change the name of the SNAG to something that fits your school. Every member of the school community can be part of the SNAG – your catering staff (including cook), pupils from a broad age range and at least one each of the following:

• Member of the Senior Management Team
• Member of the teaching staff (including a food technology teacher at secondary level)
• Lunchtime supervisor
• Parent or governor
• Community representative.

Getting started
Review what’s already happening in your school on food issues. Then, together, make an action plan for the areas that need improvement, taking into consideration the priorities of your school community. Actions might include developing plans to grow food organically in the school grounds, using this produce in cooking activities and creating links to local farms and food producers so that pupils can find out more about where food comes from.

We monitor school meal take up and we are taking action to maximise the take up of free school meals

We consult with our pupils and parents on school meal improvements

We keep parents informed of lunch menus and Food for Life Partnership activity and invite them to attend our school lunches

Parents and guardians are often keen to get involved and may appreciate hearing about menus and any food related learning activities that their child, or they themselves, could get involved with.
Communicate your menus on your school website, in your newsletter or on your school notice board, and promote information on where the food has come from, as well as including messages from your catering staff.

Getting started
Providing pictures or feedback of the school lunches on your website is a good way to keep parents in the loop. You can share information about growing and cooking activities and farm links online, in the school newsletter or on bulletin boards. Many schools find that having parents present at lunchtimes helps promote a positive, sociable dining experience for everyone. Try having a specific day of the week on which parents know they are welcome to join the children at lunch. Another popular idea is to have tasting sessions at parents’ evenings.

Corpus Christi Primary School in Oldham includes a food education section in their newsletter and often sends home recipes that pupils have made in school.

We encourage our pupils to suggest improvements to the dining experience and we implement the best ideas

Actively consult your pupils about possible improvements to the dining experience on an annual basis, and agree one or more new actions based on their suggestions.

Getting started
Lunchtimes at school provide an opportunity to enjoy healthy food and acquire good food habits and social skills. It can sometimes be difficult for caterers and schools to manage the lunch break within the confines of limited dining space, which may also have multiple uses. Lots of pupils complain of long queuing times, noisy halls, shrill whistles and confusion over the food on offer, making the dining room an unpleasant place to be. Asking them for their ideas for improvements and acting on the best of these can be a great way to win their support and make simple but effective changes.

St John the Baptist School in Hackney, London, has set up a Food Forum made up of six very charismatic and inspiring girls from Years 4-6. Last year the Food Forum was responsible for changing the dining room to make it a pleasant place to eat. This year the forum is in charge of talking about food at assemblies, organising a healthy tuck-shop, checking packed lunches for healthiness and, not least, representing the pupils’ opinions of the school meals.
Rokaya, Year 6, explains: “We want to put up a food table outside in the playground with questionnaires because we don’t really know whether the children like the food or not. We think it will be nice for our cook Donna to know, so she doesn’t have to cook food that will just go to waste.”
When asked why she decided to be part of the Food Forum, Helen, a Year 4 pupil, answers: “I wanted to be part of the Food Forum because I think I can make a difference to the food in our school.”

Our lunchtime supervisors promote a calm and positive dining experience and help our pupils with food choices

We have made a commitment to phase out flight trays

Free drinking water is provided for our pupils throughout the school day

Good hydration helps children and young people to maintain a healthy weight and improves attention and concentration. It can also help increase exercise capacity and fitness levels and reduce the risk of chronic disease.
Quality drinking water should be readily available – not from taps and drinking fountains located in the toilet areas. Make sure that free drinking water is available in your dining room at lunchtime, together with sufficient glasses or cups.

Getting started
Try installing tamperproof water fountains in your dining room or supplying reusable water bottles to every pupil so they can drink throughout the school day. Contact your regional water company – many have initiatives linked to drinking water provision in school.

Food quality and provenance

(delivered in partnership with our caterer)

Food on our menu does not contain any undesirable additives or hydrogenated fats

Make sure that your menus do not contain the following additives:

Colourings
E110 (sunset yellow)
E104 (quinoline yellow)
E122 (carmoisine)
E124 (ponceau 4R)
E132 (indigo carmine)
E133 (brilliant blue FCF)
E102 (tartrazine)
E107 (yellow 2G)
E120 (cochineal)
E123 (amaranth)
E131 (patent blue V)
E151 (black PN)
Flavourings/enhancers
E621 (monosodium glutamate)
E635 (sodium 5 – ribonucleotide)

Sweeteners
E951 Aspartame
E950 Acesulfame K
E954 Sodium saccharine
Preservatives
E211 (sodium benzoate)

Don’t forget to check your custard powders, gravy granules and drinks as they are often found in these products.

This list includes all the additives shown to cause behavioural problems in the research conducted by Southampton University in 2007 that prompted the Food Standards Agency to advise parents of hyperactive children that they be avoided. It also includes other additives prevalent in children’s food that have been identified as problematic by the Hyperactive Children’s Support Group.

We make sure that at least 75% of dishes on our menu are freshly prepared

At least 75% of the dishes on your menu should be freshly prepared from unprocessed ingredients in your school kitchen. If your school doesn’t have its own kitchen, then food freshly prepared at a nearby school or catering facility for serving in your school also meets this criteria.

The Food for Life Partnership uses a common sense definition of ‘unprocessed ingredients’ to include raw basic ingredients such as fresh/frozen fruit and vegetables, fresh/frozen meat or fish, pasta, rice, flours, pulses and beans. Unprocessed foods are fresh, homemade and natural, as defined by the Food Standards Agency. Some other foods that have been subject to primary processing are included in our definition of unprocessed, such as pasta, milk, good quality cheese and sausages and wholegrain bread.

The following basic ingredients may be used in dishes counted as ‘freshly prepared’:

• Fresh or frozen vegetables, and canned sweetcorn, pulses or beans
• Fresh, dried or canned (no syrup) fruit, including tinned tomatoes
• Fresh or frozen meat which can be pre-diced or minced
• Fresh or frozen dairy products, including ice cream and yogurt
• Sausages (minimum meat content 60%)
• Cheese (unless highly processed)
• Pasta and rice
• Bread, rolls, pizza bases and wraps with some wholegrain flour content
• Stock cubes or bouillon (but they must be free from additives on our ‘undesirable’ list)
• Bread mix, custard powder and gravy mix (but they must be free from additives on our ‘undesirable’ list).

The following may not be included in a dish that is counted as freshly prepared:

• Pre-prepared potatoes (where chlorine-based whitening agents have been used)
• Reconstituted or pre-cooked meat
• Packet mixes, with the exception of bread mix, custard powder and gravy mix
• Dried egg or milk products
• Jelly cubes and crystals
• Pre-prepared sauces
• Baked beans
• Ready-made pastry

Getting started
To calculate your percentage, count all the ‘freshly prepared’ dishes on the menu rotation and calculate this as a percentage of the total number of dishes.

We use meat that is farm assured as a welfare minimum. We use eggs from cage-free hens

This is a minimum specification. If you are using free range, Freedom Food or organic meat or egg products you are exceeding this specification.

Note: Farm assurance is not a guarantee that eggs are from cagefree hens. Your caterer must therefore specify cage-free eggs in addition to farm assurance. If food is ‘farm assured’ it means it was produced on farms that are inspected to ensure that they meet the assurance scheme standards. These standards cover issues such as food safety, traceability, production methods, environmental protection and animal welfare.
The most popular schemes include Assured British Meat, Assured British Pigs, Assured Chicken Production, Assured Dairy Farms, Farm Assured Welsh Livestock (FAWL) and Quality Meat Scotland (QMS). If a product carries the Red Tractor logo, you can be sure that it is farm assured.

Various other whole supply chain assurance logos also indicate farm assurance – British Quality Assured Pork, Charter Quality British Bacon, Charter Quality British Ham, British Quality Assured Pork Sausage, and the EBLEX Quality Standard Mark which can be found on beef and lamb. Due to the requirement for annual inspections for all farms that wish to sell ‘farm assured’ food you can have greater confidence that minimum standards on animal welfare are being met in line with UK legislation when you specify meat and eggs that are farm assured.

Our menus are seasonal and we highlight in-season produce

Use and highlight a number of in season fruit and vegetables in your menus. Eating UK produce that is in season is one of the best ways to reduce your school’s carbon footprint, by cutting ‘food miles’ and avoiding energy-guzzling heated greenhouses.
Currently, 91% of fruit and 50% of vegetables in the UK are imported.
Note: Alternatively, your menus can feature a generic specification such as ‘seasonal vegetables’ or state clearly that fruit and vegetables are subject to seasonal variation.

Getting started
Eating in-season produce also means you eat food at its best, and it is often more affordable too. If your menus are seasonal it becomes far easier to source fresh produce locally. Some produce such as rhubarb has shorter seasons, and this could be used as a hook for pupils to learn about seasonality. Why not use some of the produce from your school garden – this may also encourage more pupils to try school meals.

Our menus cater well for all dietary needs in the school population

Make sure that you offer menus:
• that reflect the ethnic make up of your school
• that offer vegetarian options that are nutritionally balanced and diverse, avoiding over-reliance on cheese
• where your catering staff can clearly identify the ingredients of all dishes served for allergy sufferers.

Getting started
If children are to be encouraged to eat a balanced, healthy meal at school it can help if at least some of the food served is familiar to them. This might mean adapting some popular so-called ‘junk’ foods so that they contain well-sourced, wholesome ingredients.
Menus that reflect the ethnic make up of your school will encourage the whole school population to feel comfortable and may also give your pupils the confidence to try other, less familiar food.

Professional development is available to our catering staff, including training in fresh food preparation

A member of our catering staff has been encouraged to get involved in food education activities

Providing opportunities for your catering staff to contribute to food education can help pupils make the desired connections and it will also keep your staff motivated and inspired.
Ensure that all your catering staff are able to tell pupils and parents about what on the menu is in season, local and organic; and encourage members of your catering staff to get involved in food education beyond the dining room.
Getting started
Interaction between your catering staff and pupils can happen in both the kitchen and the classroom. Why not organise food-themed assemblies and lessons or after-school cooking and growing clubs. Some catering staff will be more keen and confident to take this opportunity than others, and your encouragement and support will be vital. Catering teams should be paid for any additional hours they do.

The school cook at Calthwaite Primary School in Penrith delivers cooking afternoons to small groups of pupils in the school dining room using the kitchen facilities to cook the food. She often makes recipes from the school menu to encourage take up of school meals.

And at S t Peter’s Primary School in Wem, Shropshire, school cook Jo Jones is regularly involved in assemblies and often visits classes to talk about school meals and balanced diets. She says: “Getting involved in education adds an extra dimension to my job and makes me feel important and valuable in the school. It’s the part of my job I enjoy the most and it helps keep me thinking about the bigger picture and the part I have to play in that.”

Food education

We use the topic of healthy and sustainable food as a theme for assemblies

Assemblies provide an excellent opportunity to explore ideas around food culture. Ideally, these themes should be addressed regularly, so that they become part of ongoing discussions around the school, rather than being restricted to a one-off event such as a food week. Hold assemblies that reinforce the messages of healthy eating and climate friendly food at least once a term.

Getting started
Encourage your pupils and teachers to report on the work they are doing in class and communicate positive food messages to the wider school community. You could invite speakers such as your link farmer, cook or local gardening group in to school, and tie these assemblies into national events or days, such as Apple Day on 21 October or World Environment Day on 5 June.

Our pupils have the opportunity to take part in cooking activities, and this is linked to wider learning

• Register with the Focus on Food Campaign
• Academy of Culinary Arts adopt-a-school scheme
• Food Standards Agency (FSA) food competences framework

Our pupils have the opportunity to grow and harvest food and make compost, and this is linked to wider learning

There is no better way to get children and young people interested in eating fruit and vegetables than by giving them the opportunity to grow some themselves. Growing organically and learning to compost also provides experiences that link together the issues of health and sustainability. In making compost, your pupils will be helping to reduce kitchen waste, build up a healthy soil, provide essential nutrients to the plants and those who eat them, and help the plants resist attack from pests and disease.
Develop a ‘curriculum map’ that identifies how growing activities can be used to reinforce learning outside the classroom and link to cooking – how can the produce grown in the school grounds be incorporated into recipes used in cooking lessons?

Getting started
As a starting point, give your garden group or class the opportunity to plant simple food crops such as tomatoes or potatoes and harvest them when ready. Use suitable organic waste from around school to begin to make compost. When you join the Food for
Life Partnership we will send you a Growing Manual full of tips and advice.

Your school will also become a member of ‘Garden Organic for Schools’.
At Greenfields Community School in Nottingham every class and the gardening club has a vegetable growing bed. There is special focus on teaching gardening skills to Year 3 and 4 pupils, and growing achievements have benefited all other areas of the curriculum, enhancing subjects ranging from Science to French.

We organise an annual farm visit, and this is linked to wider learning

By giving children and young people the opportunity to visit a farm we encourage them to become intelligent and responsible food consumers. Learning first-hand from a farmer about the realities and challenges of food production can be an important formative experience, improving knowledge and building interest in the consumption of healthy and fresh produce. Often a school trip may be the first time many pupils have been on a farm visit.

Develop a ‘curriculum map’ that identifies how farm visits can be used to reinforce learning outside the classroom and, wherever possible, incorporate food being produced on the farm into recipes for cooking at school that complement fruit and vegetables being grown in the school grounds.

Organic farms can provide wide-ranging learning opportunities because they tend to be mixed farms with both crops and livestock. As well as an opportunity to learn about farming itself, the farm provides an excellent ‘outdoor classroom’ that your teachers can use to inspire pupils around a wide range subjects, such as animal welfare, the importance of wildlife, sustainability or farming as a business.

Getting started
Prior to a farm visit, it can be of great benefit to pupils to have the opportunity to do some preparatory research on farming and the farm itself. For example, your pupils might prepare a set of interview questions for the farmer to find out more about daily life on a farm and how the farmer helps the environment. Don’t forget that after the visit there will be other opportunities for follow-up work linked to the curriculum.

“Seeing the seasons on a farm gives children a valuable and lasting experience.”
Mark Lea, farmer, Greenacres Farm, Shropshire

• In your region - Farm Links on this site
• Organic farm demonstration network
• Year of Food and Farming
• Farms for schools
• Farming and Countryside Education
• Teachernet advice on health and safety for visits
• Health and Safety Executive guidance

Community and Partnerships

We hold an annual event on a food theme for our pupils, parents and the wider community

Holding an event with a food theme can be a great hook to get pupils and parents actively participating and invariably pays dividends in terms of attendance by parents.
Create opportunities to celebrate food through events that are open to and enjoyable for your pupils, parents and the wider community.

Getting started
A remarkable range of imaginative food events takes place in schools around the country – from taster sessions at parents’ evenings to cooking demonstrations by local chefs. Many schools find using an international theme can create an interesting and popular food event whereby classes study the food and make recipes from different countries. Ideas for community events are available at www.foodforlife.org.uk

Surrey Square Junior and Infants Schools in London held an International Extravaganza event to celebrate the food and culture from other countries. Parents were invited in to the school to cook with the pupils during the day and share their food skills with other parents in the evening. Each class focused on a different country, making two dishes for the evening celebration, and every child in the school had the opportunity to take part.

The majority of parents – over 450 – attended, making the day a real success. This level of engagement was unprecedented so the schools have decided to make it into an annual event.

We make efforts to actively engage parents and/or the wider community in our growing and cooking activities

Schools can be seen as education centres in their widest sense by providing people of any age, ability and outlook with a tremendous sense of wellbeing and achievement.
Use your newsletter, website, visits or dedicated letters to promote existing activities and new opportunities to involve parents and community members in changing food culture. Involving parents and community members in cooking and growing projects increases the likelihood of them being replicated at home.

Getting started
Parents and community groups may well provide a valuable resource of volunteering time or in-kind contributions such as gardening tools or ingredients for cooking. Oldfield Park Infants School in Bath has had great success with its cooking bags which contain utensils, recipes and a comments book. Pupils can reserve a bag to take home and cook with their family in the evening, and they are encouraged to write comments on their cooking experience with their family. This has really taken off and the books are now a valuable resource, bursting with inspirational photos and ideas.

We share Food for Life Partnership learning with local schools, the wider community and other partners

The Food for Life Partnership is all about sharing learning and involving others in your work to transform food culture.

Getting started
You may want to...

• Use existing local networks and forums such as extended schools clusters to share your Food for Life Partnership learning.
• Present your work at local headteachers’ meetings and share the benefits.
• Present to local Healthy Schools clusters, learning communities and other stakeholder local groups.
• Invite other schools to engage with Food for Life Partnership or work towards a Bronze award collaboratively.

And what’s the benefit to your school?

• You will be supporting and encouraging a culture of local collaboration and partnership working.
• You will gain local credit for your achievements.
• Collaboration with local schools on Food for Life Partnership work makes things happen, such as establishing a cooking club or working together to meet the Food for Life Partnership food quality and provenance criteria. You will be developing exciting learning opportunities for pupils, teachers, communities and caterers.
• You will be able to promote your school as a leader of food culture through the local media.
• This is an opportunity for professional development for your staff.

St John’s Primary School in Midsomer Norton, Bath and North East Somerset , held a series of evening cookery classes aimed at developing the cooking skills of staff in neighbouring schools. The sessions were opened out to all schools across the Local Authority and beyond. All Food for Life Partnership schools were able to attend for free, but any staff from non-Food for Life Partnership schools were required to contribute to the cost. The sessions were well attended and, as a result, St John’s successfully recruited several schools to the Food for Life Partnership, helped develop cooking skills and forged close links with their neighbouring secondary school.

• Garden Organic membership