89% of parents are happy with their child's school meals, according to a new survey out today.
The online poll, by LACA and ParentPay, asked 10,000 parents for their views on school food and found that the overwhelming majority were happy with the service their child gets. 15 per cent of families entitled to free school meals weren’t taking them and 80 per cent of parents said they wanted even more information about what their children had for lunch.
Our Chief Executive, Judy Hargadon, said: “One of the most welcome findings here is that so many of these parents are taking such an interest in the food their children eat at school- this has never been more important for keeping standards high. With school food no longer inspected by Ofsted, the influence of parents is very powerful for demanding that every child has a good experience at lunchtime. It’s vital that they use it – because when children eat better, they do better, and how they feel about lunch can make or break their entire day at school.
“More worrying is that there are still so many families who would qualify for free school meals but aren’t taking them. For a family with two children, that means they could be missing out on healthy food worth more than £700 in a year. That’s why we’ve launched a campaign called Free School Meals Matter for schools wanting to work on this issue, which is helping schools all over the country with practical resources for improving their free school meals take up.”
The survey also asked parents for their view on cooking. 96% wanted children to learn to cook at school.
Judy added: “It’s wonderful to see that so many of these parents support cooking at school because learning to cook really does improve health. Research from our Let’s Get Cooking programme, which has set up the country’s largest network of healthy school cooking clubs and reached more than 1 million people, shows that 58% of people eat a healthier diet after learning to cook. That’s why we want cooking to be compulsory for all children at school.”
