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Written b y Scott Brown ( sco2bro )
I think it’s fair to say everyone involved in the School Meal industry was waiting with baited breath on Monday night to see what Dispatches would bring to the ongoing debate surrounding school meal standards, how they are monitored, and why nutritional standards no longer apply to all schools. I think it’s also fair to say from what I’ve read this week in various articles, blogs, tweets and the like is that on the whole most people were pretty disappointed. I think possibly the first wave of this came for me when I realised the programme had finished just as I was hoping for better content in the second half. Didn’t Dispatches used to be an hour, or is that just me.
The programme focused heavily on takeaways near schools doing a roaring trade at lunchtime initially, which clearly is not a great situation but I don’t think we can point the finger at these vendors they are servicing a demand, what we need to do is remove the demand by shutting the gate at lunchtime. Simple. Can any Head Teacher or school Governor explain to me why you wouldn’t, seems easier than objecting to takeaway planning requests in the courts as was highlighted. I’ve said this for years as have many others, several tweeters made the point on Monday night during the programme and several people have highlighted it since including Henry Dimbleby in this article by Janie Stamford in the Caterer:
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Channel 4 investigation into school food was a missed opportunity …
Sep 11, 2012 … A Channel 4 investigation into the issues around school food was a missed opportunity, according to disappointed campa…0
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I have myself witnessed firsthand a trebling of uptake in an Academy that adopted this policy. The thing that worries me most about the way
Dispatches presented this was the 40% uptake figure was used to portray school meal services negatively, cut to Jamie – “If the food don’t taste right the kid’s aint going to eat it”. True enough, but aren’t we missing the point? The choice isn’t a straight one regarding food. I believe the actual choice that teenagers are faced with is between staying at school or cutting loose on the high street for an hour of freedom. A no brainer if ever I’ve heard one! How they spend their couple of quid on lunch is surely governed by their location when their hungry? Or am I missing something? I think 40% uptake is really positive in light of this and we all know its way higher in many schools. school meals have improved hugely in the last 7 years and that’s been the result of massive amounts of hard work from dedicated individuals and organisations like the School Food Trust and LACA with Jamie undoubtedly as the catalyst. For me one of the issues with the programme was it never really told me, in the programme maker’s view, what the scandal actually was. Hopefully not that Jamie thinks school food is still in the doldrums and can’t deliver taste to compete with the chippy? -
Would be delighted for my children’s school to have a stay on site policy when they hit their teens #schooldinner #loveschoolfood0
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They also had a predictable swipe at the corporate dollar singling out Dominos franchisees for donating money to Michael Gove’s constituency party. Are we expected to believe that they have a strategy to open up next to schools and political donations will help? Please Dispatches give us some credit. I would have thought it would be virtually impossible to find a suburban shop location that isn’t reasonably close to a school, perhaps Dominos have just worked out that a pizza delivery or collection service works better close to the community it serves?
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I’m sure Henry Dimbleby who was contributing on the basis he’d been asked advise the government on improving school meals wasn’t expecting Leon’s children’s menu to be criticised in the way it was? The point about school meals having nutritional standards that can be monitored is our children eat them every day! They don’t eat at Leon every day, furthermore the nutrient based standards are based on averaged analysis across a menu cycle not individual dishes.
Perhaps the most confusing part of the programme was about the cost of ingredients in school meals. Anyone with the faintest clue what point was being made please let me know. All I learned was that sausages with lower meat content and powdered mash cost slightly less than ones with higher meat content and real potatoes. Cue presenter gagging on the former and declaring it inedible. What was their point? The piece that followed suggested East Lothian spend £3.30 per primary school meal on ingredients as appose to as little as 53p in other areas, this suggested to me only one thing. Everyone who works on Dispatches was off school the day they did maths!
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No surprise @C4Dispatches was wrong – East Lothian food costs 94p /meal not £3.30 Which is best headline?! #LoveSchoolFood #schooldinner0
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East Lothian Council corrects Channel 4’s school meals price http://ow.ly/dEL5Y #dispatches #LoveSchoolFood #SchoolDinner0
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The programme did briefly cover what I believe is actually the School Food Scandal, but I’m not sure how clear they made it to the viewing
public. Let me try. The government are currently persuing a policy to encourage schools to opt out of local authority control and become Academies that manage their own affairs and finances free of the ‘shackles’ that previously held them back. With this comes short term financial incentives along with operational ones like (You guessed it) not having to meet the nutrient based standards on school meals. How can a two tier system like this be sustainable? It mentioned the effort that has gone into school food improvement in the last 7 years since Jamie’s School dinners but what about the vast sums of taxpayers’ money that have gone into developing and attaining Nutrient based standards. Please Mr Gove let’s not waste all that.Mr Gove has of course been challenged on this even by Jamie himself but as far as I can see his only answer is – We trust Academies
governors, heads and management teams to do the right thing and serve healthy food. With the greatest respect to Academies governors, heads and management teams are they best placed to make the judgement call on the nutritional value of the school menu, are they geared up to monitor it? Let’s not forget school meals are a business, whether a school manages its own catering service, buys into Local Authority provision or uses a contract caterer, if the service has made a loss at the end of the year someone picks up the bill. Faced with this commercial pressure and no more legislation to restrict what is served you don’t have to be a domestic scientist to work out what will happen. It already is – crisps and chocolate are back in 1/3 of Academies polled, and arguably the most shocking fact Dispatches gave us was that some schools were actually serving energy drinks. I’m led to believe that my daughter’s school (in transition to become an academy) has appointed a new caterer this term and now Coffee is available, I have to check this out properly but I asked her again tonight and she is adamant. Watch this space.I believe the Government along with school governors and heads should welcome sensible standards applied to every school meals service with independent monitoring. Please someone explain to me if I’ve got this wrong and how the current situation is more in our children’s interests?
Mr Gove’s argument is about trusting Schools to do the right thing with regard to school food. Well please can we start by keeping kids on
site at Lunchtime? Leaving them to their own devices is like saying if you don’t fancy maths today just pop down the bookies instead. Odds calculation provides a mathematical challenge just like takeaways provide food. So do the right thing head teachers, Mr Gove is relying on you…. -
So in conclusion: Equal Nutritional standards across all Schools (and lock those blooming gates!) #LoveSchoolFood #schooldinner0
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