St Mary’s Catholic School in Leicestershire have now achieved their Food for Life Gold Award, making them the seventh school in the area to achieve this top award. The school have embraced a whole setting approach to food whole-heartedly, ensuring it’s a staple part of the school day, not just at lunchtime.
Big congratulations to St Mary's C of E School in Hinckley, Leicestershire, who have achieved their Food for Life Gold Award. This it the highest level of the Food for Life Schools Award and is proof of a school’s exceptional dedication to building a good food culture.
Holy Cross enrolled into the Food for Life programme in July 2024 and since then have been hard at work improving their school food culture. Their first step was to set up a SNAG – a school nutrition action group – made up of pupils and staff who want to effect change.
For over 20 years, Food for Life has been working with schools, nurseries and caterers across the UK to get meals that are at least 75% freshly prepared with whole and minimally processed ingredients on our plates.
Schools in Lancashire have been making good use of Food for Life’s wealth of resources to run cooking clubs. They’re able to access these expert resources thanks to Lancashire County Council commissioning Food for Life to make good food the norm across the county.
Pupils and teachers at this Lancashire primary school have been making use of Food for Life’s Cook and Share resources to cook up a storm.
The school have been working hard to improve their food culture and pupil wellbeing and were delighted to receive their Food for Life Foundation Award during a recent assembly. They are the first school in West Northamptonshire to achieve this award.
Inspired by their work with the Food for Life programme and with the cost of healthy meals increasing, St Philip’s Primary School in Lancashire has been running free ‘budget boosting’ meal workshops.
With no grass and lots of tarmac, Nelson St Philip’s Primary School in Lancashire had to get inventive when establishing a growing space. To get some inspiration, they attended a Food for Life training session and worked with the Food for Life team in Lancashire for further support. Armed with compost and lots of pupil creativity, they set up their own ‘Grow Our Own’ area.
Peel Park Primary School link their curriculum topics to growing, cooking and many other creative outdoor activities so that every pupil gets the opportunity to learn outdoors.
As we reach the end of a very busy year for all of us in the food world, we’re taking a moment to reflect on the successes and challenges we’ve faced and our hopes for 2025.
Miss Maher, Assistant Headteacher and the SNAG (school nutrition action group) at St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School in Darlaston, wanted to revolutionise breaktime snacks. Despite making good progress towards a good food culture, unhealthy options remained popular at breaktimes, with few children bringing in fruit or vegetables. Even worse, the free fruit on offer each day wasn’t being enjoyed and instead languishing at breaktime.
