Following comments on the impact of Jamie Oliver's School Dinners Judy Hargadon, chief executive of the School Food Trust has released a statement.
Following comments on the impact of Jamie Oliver’s School Dinners Judy Hargadon, chief executive of the School Food Trust, said:
“Following Jamie’s School Dinners and the introduction of new standards in 2006 take-up has gone up over the last two years – reversing a 30-year decline. What is true is that Jamie’s School Dinners revealed the poor quality food that was being served to some children. As a result many parents simply stopped giving their children school food resulting in a sharp fall in take-up. But for the last two years in a row take up has increased primary schools and it increased last year in secondary schools.
“We know that children are very happy to eat healthy food – the biggest barrier to them having school food is not the food itself but the negative experiences of lunchtime such as queues and noise. The latest Ofsted report into school food, published last week, showed many schools have succeeded in increasing the take-up of free school meals by giving better advice and support to parents. Trust research also show that eating a healthy school dinners improves pupils learning behaviour.”
A larger version of this graph can be downloaded below.
Official statistics for 2009/10 are due to be published next Thursday, 8th July.
Last year’s statistics can be found on the link below:
www.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk/documents/NI52statisticalrelease2008-2009
