GOLD criteria & guidance
Food Leadership and School Food Culture
Food quality and provenance
(delivered in partnership with our caterer)
Food education
Community and Partnerships
Food Leadership and School Food Culture
Our pupils all have the opportunity to sit down to lunch every day
Ideally pupils should have at least 30 minutes when they can sit down and eat their lunch. This gives pupils them opportunity for both social interaction and good eating habits.
Getting started
Limited seating capacity can be a problem, particularly in secondary schools. Creative timetabling is a good way to ensure that all your pupils have an opportunity to sit down for a sufficient period at lunchtime. Some schools have found staggering lunch periods for different year groups or opening multiple serving points or cashless systems has successfully reduced queuing times.
Take up of school meals is over 60% OR has increased by more than 20% since we enrolled with the Food for Life Partnership
Measure your meal take up as an average over a term or half term. To demonstrate an increase of over 20%, an additional 20% or more of the whole pupil population will be taking school meals, compared to the average for the term or half term in which your school enrolled OR the same term or half term in the previous year. In order to retain a Gold Mark you will need to demonstrate that this take up has been sustained at the two-year review.
Calculation example
School role: 200
Take up at enrolment: 75 pupils had school meals every day
Percentage of take up at enrolment: 37.5%
Take up now: 100 pupils have school meals per day
Percentage of take up now: 50%
To work out the 25 meals increase from enrolment as a percentage:
Divide the difference between the take up figures (25) by the original take up (75) x 100 = your percentage take up ie 25/75 x 100 = 33% increase in school meal take up.
Getting started
Useful strategies for increasing take up of school meals include:
- Allowing pupils who eat packed lunches and pupils having school dinners to sit and eat together. Pupils say they are keen to spend the lunch period with friends, so they may not want to eat school dinners if their friends with packed lunches sit elsewhere.
- Consulting with your pupils and parents on menu improvements.
- Holding food taster evenings where parents can try out new dishes or celebrate new menus, and inviting parents to join children on various occasions for school lunches.
- Holding school dinner promotions at events for new joiners and their parents.
- Making office staff time available to help families apply for school dinners.
At Penair School in Truro the uptake of lunches has grown from 30 to 400 in just two years. Catering Manager John Rankin uses local ingredients such as fish that is locally caught in St Ives and Newlyn, and fresh produce from around the county.
Headteacher Barbara Vann says this is due to careful budgeting: “John keeps costs down by sourcing locally as much as possible. We are not crosssubsidising, so the service has to break even.”
We are working with our caterer to reduce and manage food waste
Approximately one-third of food grown for human consumption in the UK ends up in the rubbish bin. At least half of this is edible, and much of the other half could be more usefully composted.
In the UK, the vast majority of our food waste ends up in landfill; as the food rots it produces methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases. Food waste also represents a waste of money that could instead be invested in better quality ingredients.
Getting started
Work with your caterer to monitor food waste and adopt ideas such as:
- A pre-ordering system to ensure the correct number of covers will be served.
- A consultation process with your pupils and parents on menus, ensuring revisions are carried out.
- In primary schools, train your lunchtime supervisors to encourage and reward pupils who clear their plates.
- Compost appropriate food waste from your school meals.
Food quality and provenance
(delivered in partnership with our caterer)
We make sure at least 30% of the ingredients we use are from a certified organic or MSC-certified source
According to the Government, organic farming tends to deliver greater biodiversity, less pollution, less carbon dioxide emissions, better animal welfare and more local economic activity. The Sustainable Development Commission describes organic farming as the ‘gold standard’ for sustainable food. Overfishing has caused one-third of all fish stocks worldwide to collapse, and scientists are warning that if current trends continue all fish stocks worldwide will collapse within 50 years.
Aim to spend at least 30% of your ingredient spend over a menu rotation on certified organic or MSC-certified ingredients. Fish can be counted towards the 30% target if it is organically farmed or MSC-certified wild fish.
Getting started
The MSC Fish & Kids programme is helping to make MSC-certified sustainable fish products available to schools. For more advice go to www.fishandkids.org
At first glance this is often viewed as very challenging by many caterers and schools. However, once you achieve Bronze and Silver, the jump to Gold is very attainable.
Shropshire Local Authority school meal provider, Shire Services, is currently serving Silver standard primary menus and is now going for Gold.
Bill Campbell of Shire Services says: “If you are careful about how you structure your menu and work closely with your current suppliers it is quite easy to use organic food
without it costing too much. Our approach has been to use organic products with a long shelf life such as rice, then we moved onto local organic vegetables and some dairy such as yogurts. MSC fish hasn’t been difficult to procure either and is readily available from most suppliers.”
We source at least 50% of our ingredients locally
Aim to spend at least 50% of your total ingredient budget over a menu rotation on locally sourced ingredients.
To count as locally sourced, ingredients should be bought and produced within your region or any adjacent county/local authority that falls outside your region. For instance, a school or caterer in Dorset could source ingredients from anywhere in the South West and also from Hampshire.
Getting started
When making sourcing decisions consider the following questions:
Note: Any of these considerations may be accepted as a valid justification for counting produce sourced a limited distance outside your region or adjacent county towards the 50% target.
We make sure that certified organic meat, dairy products or eggs feature on our menu as animal welfare best practice
For climate change, health and animal welfare reasons, it is desirable that as a society we shift towards eating less but better quality meat. All animals on organic farms live in free-range systems and are encouraged to roam outdoors and express their natural behaviour. According to leading animal welfare organisation, Compassion in World Farming, organic farming has the potential to offer the very highest standards of animal welfare, and the Soil Association’s welfare standards are industry benchmarks. Include organic meat, milk, cheese, yogurt or eggs on your school menu at least once a week.
We are taking steps to increase the take up of non-meat dishes and to promote a balanced, sustainable diet
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, meat consumption accounts for 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions. This is due to methane emissions from cattle and forest clearance to grow animal feed for intensive farming, as well as the nitrous oxide emissions from fertilizer used to grow this feed. Switching to a more plant-based diet and eating less but better quality meat would make our diets more climate-friendly.
The World Health Organisation and World Cancer Research Fund also recommend eating meat in moderation, while eating more fruit, vegetables and starchy wholefoods, to reduce saturated fat consumption and to minimise bowel cancer risk.
Serving less meat will enable you to invest in better quality for pupils e.g. free range or organic meat.
Getting started
Steps that can be taken to familiarize your pupils with some non-meat dishes as part of a balanced diet include:
- Trialling meat-free days.
- Making popular vegetable-based dishes the main dish of the day, alongside less popular dishes.
- Setting targets for increasing the number of vegetarian covers served.
- Reducing meat portion sizes within nutritionally-balanced recipes.
Food education
We are committed to providing a minimum of 12 hours of cooking lessons a year by 2011 for all our pupils up to and including key stage 3
According to the Royal Society for Public Health young people have a strong desire to learn cookery skills.
However, we seem to live in a culture where children and young people’s cooking knowledge is limited to putting together meals or snacks from pre-prepared ingredients, and their understanding of the cooking process is largely confined to what a microwave can do in seconds.
Primary schools
Introduce a range of familiar and less familiar ingredients and teach your pupils to make simple nutritious dishes that can form part of healthy meals. Best practice is to teach your pupils basic cooking skills, including safe techniques for the use of sharp knives.
Secondary schools
Best practice is to ensure that your students develop and hone the basics learned during their primary years, so that no student leaves your school without knowledge of the foundation recipes and possesses a repertoire of at least ten nutritious and affordable dishes.
Getting started
Give your pupils every possible opportunity to develop their cooking skills so that they can prepare balanced meals independently and with confidence. Some of our Food for Life Partnership primary schools get support from their local secondary school to help them sustain their 12 hours of cooking, or use food-themed events to get all their pupils cooking.
St Edward’s CE Primary in Romford, London is developing its curriculum to follow a cross-topic-based approach. The school has written a cooking scheme of work for Years1-6, taking each topic and planning recipes for each year group, including some guidelines for preparation. Each year group will have two hours of cookery linked to the topic that they are studying every half term.
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Guidance on cooking at Gold
(pdf, 215KB)
All our pupils have the opportunity to participate in organic food growing during their time at our school
Pupils often benefit from organic food growing becoming an integral part of school life. Not only is food growing an effective way of promoting healthier diets and lifestyles, it can also provide a successful method of engaging any pupils who may be disengaged from classroom learning. It is key to developing pupils’ understanding of food provenance and the implications for the environment and their own health.
Primary schools
Make organic growing activities a regular part of your curriculum planning and school life, with opportunities to extend beyond a single module of work in one year group. Note: we would want to see more than an after-school gardening club open to all pupils.
Secondary schools
Ensure that organic food growing is integrated into all appropriate curriculum areas and provide a growing club that is open to all students. If possible, provide students with their own growing area, no matter how small.
Getting started
While it may not be feasible for all your pupils to be actively involved in organic food growing activity at any one time, all pupils should be given the opportunity to participate at some time during their school lives. Using the school garden as a basis for Science, Maths or English Language classes, or enlisting year groups to help in the harvest and preparation of school garden produce for a soup sale or cooking class, are just a few ways in which you can involve larger numbers.
At St John’s CE (VA) Primary, Midsomer Norton, teaching assistants are on an alternate weekly rota to work in the garden with pupils. This ensures that all pupils are given the opportunity to take part. And growing activities bring added benefits. As one teacher comments: “We all know that gardening with kids works – if they grow it they’ll eat it!”
We actively involve our pupils in planning the food growing calendar and maintaining the growing area using organic practices
Putting new skills into practice is empowering and rewarding. Utilising pupils’ knowledge of food growing and organic principles in planning the food growing calendar will create a strong sense of pride and ownership. Give your pupils the opportunity to become actively involved in planning what is to be sown and harvested and when, rather than this being planned on their behalf by a teacher.
Getting started
Pupils will gain maximum benefit if they can experience the full growing cycle and grow a range of seasonal food all year round. Try sowing early and late varieties, succession sowing and providing some protection during the harshest of weather conditions to achieve this.
Using organic practices will allow your pupils to become aware of the detailed and intricate ways in which all living things are connected, and that growing organically means working in harmony with nature.
At Franche Community Primary, Kidderminster, the gardening club decides what is to be grown where each year, make their own crop rotation plan and keeps records of what they have grown. The children choose the seeds, test the soil, identify any pests and make decisions about controlling them.
Our pupils have the opportunity to take part in a programme of farm-based activities throughout the farming year
Pupils often benefit from doing physical work and learning new practical skills. If this work is linked to the farming calendar, getting involved will enable your pupils to become more connected with the farm and its annual cycle. Ensure that pupils involved in your farm links programme are actively carrying out a range of tasks around the farm.
Hands-on participation is not only rewarding but maximises learning, and in secondary schools this provides an amazing opportunity to introduce students to farming as a career option.
Getting started
Activities might include the following:
- Feeding animals
- Cleaning out animals’ housing and putting in clean bedding
- Collecting eggs
- Grinding wheat to make flour
- Milking a cow
- Planting
- Weeding and harvesting crops
- Dry stone walling, stacking wood
- Clearing streams.
Note: Activities of this type involve additional health and safety considerations, but if you ensure that your pupils work in groups that are closely supervised by a farm worker or school staff, then these activities should be no more risky than cookery or woodwork classes in school.
“Farms give an enormous amount of cross-curricular learning, doing something in a field really is a memorable experience that will stay with you for life.” Mark Lea, farmer, Greenacres Farm, Shropshire
Community and Partnerships
Our parents and/or the wider community are actively involved in growing and cooking activities in our school
Forging strong school-home and school-community links to help deliver current education policy enriches the curriculum. Pupils’ achievements have been shown to be greater where parents and the wider community are actively involved in school life. The Food for Life Partnership can support project based learning.
Invite parents and/or community members to help organise, contribute to, and attend growing and cooking activities, and aim to achieve a good level of response to these invitations.
Getting started
Innovative ways of integrating parents, local residents and other members of the community can prove a real challenge. It helps to be both creative and persistent in your efforts. People are often happy to share memories and knowledge with others. Different members of the community can bring food culture to life for pupils, from the older generation telling stories of how they coped with food rationing during the war, to multicultural groups bringing knowledge of the diversity of food that we can grow and cook with in this country.
Children at Haydonleigh Primary School in Swindon have received special support from their grandparents: with their many years of expertise, they have become invaluable supporters of the school’s gardening club held each Wednesday.
Grandparent Marion Dowdell says: “My husband and I were both keen to support this project when we heard about it – just for the sheer enjoyment of helping the children.
We really look forward to our Wednesdays now.” Teacher Kate Mackinnon, who is
leading the gardening activities, says: “All of the crops we pick go to the kitchen, but beforehand they are taken on a tour around the school. The children are really interested to see what has been grown – some of them had very little awareness of how vegetables grew beforehand, but this really brings it to life for them.”
Our parents can buy or collect organic and/or local produce at our school, or we direct them to alternative local outlets
Box schemes are a great way to learn about what’s in season, and are often more affordable than buying organic – or even non-organic produce – at the supermarket.
Getting started You can provide a drop-off point for local organic vegetable box deliveries, giving parents the opportunity to buy when they collect their children from school.
Note: If there is an existing local and organic food retailer or box scheme drop-off point in the community, you should carefully consider whether an additional service is needed.
Hemsworth Arts & Community College in West Yorkshire is launching its own Community Supported Agriculture project in March 2010. The school has 30 hens and a vegetable garden looked after by a group of pupils in the Rural Studies department. The figures needed to set up the project have been provided by a Year 12 Business Studies group who will use the project to build up their coursework portfolio. Currently, the plan is to sell shares of £2 per week to staff and parents, who will receive a box of eggs every two weeks and produce from the school garden in the intervening week.
For more information about Community Supported Agriculture visit www.soilassociation.org.csa.aspx
Food and cooking education is available in our school to parents and community members out of school hours
Offer classes in practical food education, including cooking, for parents and the wider community at least once a term. You can have a positive influence on your pupils’ diets outside school, and influence the health of the wider community, by offering opportunities for parents and community groups to develop cooking or growing skills using your school facilities out of school hours.
Getting started
Some schools have found it useful to develop a cooking resource area in the classroom so members of the community can access recipes and advice during open times. Try linking with your local college which may be able to offer further advice and support for adult learning.
Jacqueline Parks, Head of Hospitality at Cardinal Wiseman High School in Greenford, London has been running cookery evening classes for parents and community members for a number of years. The six-week course is run after school from 6.00–9.30pm and has become so popular that there is now a waiting list, and the school is looking into running the course more frequently. Advertised through the school’s newsletter and website, many people are now also signing up through word of mouth.
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Cooking Skills in Schools: Kitchen Safety and Hygiene
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Cooking Skills in Schools: Risk Assessment Pro forma
(pdf, 176KB) -
Cooking Skills in Schools: Basic Knife Skills
(pdf, 146KB) -
Cooking Skills in Schools: Shopping and Advance Preparation
(pdf, 144KB) -
Going for Balance: A guide to maintaining a balanced diet
(pdf, 159KB)
We host regular visits about the Food for Life Partnership from other schools and stakeholders
Ideally, these fact-finding visits would involve your pupils, teaching and catering staff and enable local schools and other stakeholders to understand how you have transformed your school food culture using the Food for Life Partnership approach and what the benefits have been.
Getting started
This may mean:
- Hosting one-to-one meetings with other headteachers at your school.
- Running small seminars for local schools to explore positive food cultures.
- Giving pupil-led presentations at local Healthy Schools/Sustainable Schools events.
- Supporting pupil-led assemblies for neighbouring schools or feeder primaries.
- Working with your local media to promote Food for Life Partnership events, activities and benefits.
- Working with other local flagships schools to host events for local stakeholders.
- Integrating a Food for Life Partnership dimension into an existing event.
- Focusing on a particular element of the Food for Life Partnership, such as the dining environment or the kitchen garden.
- Hosting workshops about sustainable lifestyles and inviting others to participate in the debate or sign up to local Food for Life Partnership activity.
- Appointing a nominated school lead for this area of activity can help support visits whilst also giving an opportunity for professional development for a member of staff.
Get in touch
If you would like to learn more about the Food for Life Partnership or have any questions, please contact us.