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In the wake of Jamie Oliver’s 2005 School Dinners campaign to improve the standard of food being served within our schools, the Secretary of State for Education announced a series of measures designed to increase the quality of school meals across the country.

By 2008 all local authorities must have clear plans in place so that every child who wants a hot meal at school will have access to one. This proves a greater challenge for Bournemouth than many other local authorities across the country as very few of our primary schools have any kitchen facilities on site and the majority of pupils are currently provided with a cold packed meal.

However, the authority’s School Meals Project Officer, Michelle Compton has set about ensuring that Bournemouth will achieve this government target.

Hot Meal Trials in Bournemouth

Four pilot projects have been set up across the borough within the following schools:

• Kinson Primary School
• Heathlands Primary School
• Winton Primary School
• Malmesbury Park Primary School

These four pilot projects use 2 different types of hot meal services.

Kinson, Heathlands and Winton are working with our current contractor, Scolarest, to trial a system called Esteam which allows food to be steam cooked and served on the school site by the school’s existing lunchtime supervisors.

At Malmesbury Park a different pilot has been developed involving the nearby Portchester Boys School. Here, food is cooked from fresh in the Portchester kitchen each morning and then is transported in insulated hot boxes to the primary school where it is served to pupils from a heated servery.

All the existing lunch time supervisors involved in the preparing and serving the hot lunches in the pilot projects have been fully trained in food hygiene.

All the pilot projects are proving to be a great success with good levels of take up among pupils. For more information and photos on the individual hot meal pilot projects click on the school links above

Strategy for School Meal Improvement

Our project officer is currently developing a draft strategy to outline the borough’s approach to improving school food over the next 2 years in line with the government’s new targets and nutritional guidelines. To find out more about the new nutritional guidelines for school food click here. 

Consultation with schools

We have also carried out a consultation exercise with all primary school heads asking how, based on what the market has to offer, they would like to see hot meals implemented in their school. Schools can either choose to be part of a group contract for school meals which will be provided by a private contractor but managed by the borough or to develop and manage an independent contract of their choice. Schools who decide to develop an independent contract have been provided with a management checklist and advice on how to go about this.

The views expressed by head teachers during the consultation exercise were used to write the contract details that will provide the outline for our new group school meal service.

School Meals Tender process

The tender process for the group school meals contract recently started and is due to be completed in July 07. The new contractor will then begin working in Bournemouth schools from Sept 2007; initially they will be providing a cold meal but will work in partnership with the borough and its primary schools to implement a phased roll out of hot meals in time for the government’s deadline. As soon as the phased roll out of hot meal has been planned we will put the programme on line so you can see when hot meals will be introduced in your school.

New Nutritional Standards for school food

All the food served in Bournemouth schools must meet the new nutritional standards that have been introduced by central government. These new standards have been developed following the national rise in childhood obesity and further research that showed children were not making healthy food choices at lunchtime.

There are 3 parts to the new nutritional standards which are to be phased in by September 2009. Together, the standards cover all food sold or served across the  school day not just at lunchtime: breakfast clubs, after school clubs, mid morning break and tuck and vending services.

Many of the foods that are no longer allowed or have been restricted under these new standards are those that pose a greater risk to our children’s health.

Our project officer is working with schools across Bournemouth, particularly our secondary schools, where the pupils choice is much wider, to help ensure the smooth introduction and implementation of the new nutritional standards across the school day. For more information on the nutritional standards your school should be meeting and when these will apply go to the School Food trust website.

Project Officer Contact details

If you have any questions or concerns about school food in Bournemouth or would simply like to know more about how the borough is working towards changing school food please contact Michelle Compton on 01202 456190