Introduction:
The King’s Secondary School in Grantham is a thriving local authority school situated in South Lincolnshire. The school currently has 1000 boys aged 11-18 years on roll, with over 265 pupils in the 6th Form. The school is situated in the town centre and has to compete with: local supermarkets; sandwich bars; garages and fast food outlets for their pupils’ custom.
Why make improvements to the school meal provision?
In July 2008, only 110 pupils were opting for a school meal daily, with a 12% take up. The catering operation had become a drain on the school’s financial resources. On average the school was losing £50,000 – £60,000 per year, taking into account staff costs.
The dining experience was not an enjoyable one as the dining space was uninviting and dark. Furthermore, the school had only 80 seats in the dining area, which was not nearly adequate enough for the number of pupils on roll.
Queues were lengthy at the servery and the kitchen layout and service provision was poor. On average, pupils queued for 15 minutes to enter the dining area and then for a further 3 minutes at the single service point.
Who was involved in driving forward the changes?
Peter Kikbride (Bursar/Business/ Manager) was responsible for driving forward the changes. Peter appointed Richard Wedgbury FCSI Catering Consultant to provide an advisory role. However, Assistant Bursar (Facilities Manager), John Kendall MBE was responsible for managing the project. The school saved money by not employing external contractors to project manage the improvements.
Peter and Richard visited a few schools in Finland and found that the catering provision was based around a simple straightforward menu with one meal choice every day. The straightforward menu only required simple kitchen facilities which were very cost effective. Pupils were also able to self-serve and manage portion size which reduced food wastage and staff costs. In Finland, lunchtimes are seen as a protected time. Richard developed a project plan based around the Finish concept for catering, as this seemed to meet the school’s needs effectively.
What they did?
Dining area: The King’s Secondary School enlisted a local design stylist, Katherine Armstrong-Short, to create an inviting dining space. Katherine created artwork and murals, based on a science theme and with reference to the schools most famous pupil, Sir Isaac Newton. All the new furniture, pictures, TV screens/electronic message boards, staff uniforms and trays were chosen by Katherine to reflect the right style and branding for the dining room. This has given the dining area a new impressive look and feel. The dining area has 146 seats and is capable of serving a minimum of 500 pupils.
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Sixth Form Centre: A sixth form centre was created with a stylish and contemporary theme. The centre boasts a state-of-the-art coffee bar, social area, 22 networked computers and a WiFi service. The centre also provides hot snacks and sandwiches. Sixth form pupils are allowed off-site at lunch times, however, the centre still takes, on average, £60.00 per day.
Kitchen Capacity: Stangard Catering were engaged to implement the kitchen design, which had been produced in conjunction with the Catering Consultant. The kitchen area required extensive work including:
- New roof
- New flooring
- New extraction
- Refrigeration
- Storage
- Wash up areas
- White rock walling
- New electrical and plumbing services
- Two METOS Cooking Kettles, (capacity 150lt and 100ltr)
- Two Combi Ovens (20 tray capacity)
- Blast Chiller
- Walk in Cold Store.
The work was sub-contracted by the school and supervised by school staff and our Assistant Bursar (Facilities Manager).. The kitchen area was revamped during the summer holidays in 2008.
Queuing Times: The school decided to implement a ‘self-serve’ policy and installed four serving points. Menus were displayed on the website and on the 10 message boards across the school campus. A single cost for meals was set at £2.13 per day (now £2.20 as of December 2009). Pupils pay as they enter the dining area and this helps to further reduce queuing time. The school installed a cashless system, in January 2009 which was expanded in May 2009. The cashless tills are linked to a web payment system which enables parents to pay online or at pay point stores.
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Quality of Food: A new Catering Manager, Stewart Scrupps, was appointed with the role of managing the production cycle with an anticipated 700 meals per day (which has equated to a 6-fold increase in activity levels). Stewart, an ex-Army Masterchef, created new and exciting menus which were rotated on a four-weekly cycle and reviewed regularly to take into account seasonal changes. The new menus comply with the nutritional food standards. All fruit and vegetables are sourced locally, and delivered daily from the local greengrocer.
All the food is prepared fresh on-site and local vegetables were incorporated into school meals. Pupils were given 1 main meal and a desert choice, per day, alongside a vegetarian option. However, the school also provided a ‘grab and go’ vending service to increase food choice. The menu design has taken into account the responses from the pupil questionnaire posed by the School Food Committee (SFC) and feedback from The School Council. The School Council has also been involved in developing the schools healthy eating concept.
Communication: The Head Master communicated the ‘vision’ by providing regular updates through his letters to parents and carers which were sent out every term. Each pupil in the school was informed of the proposed changes. The website (launched in April 2008) has a catering section which features the schools: ‘Healthy Eating’ policy, menus and project photographs. The schools internal electronic message board system also displays the daily menu.
Cost and Funding: Overall the improvements cost about £220,000 and work was completed during the summer holidays. The King’s School negotiated a 7 year loan to meet project costs. It is has been estimated that the catering service will generate an approximate income of £60,000 per annum by providing catering to other, nearby, schools. This generated income has been calculated will meet the loan repayments. Furthermore, the school secured substantial funding from the Local Authority for the improvements, on the agreement that they would support one or more local schools with their provision of daily hot meals.
What was achieved?
Dining space: The new dining area is spacious and light with new furniture and IT message boards.
Sixth Form Centre: Around 99% of the sixth form pupils utilise the sixth form centre.
Kitchen Capacity: Catering staffs are impressed with the new facilities available to them. The catering provision is more efficient due to the new equipment and kitchen layout.
Queuing Times: The time and length of the queues have been drastically reduced and the self-service practice has been very well received by the pupils. The cashless catering system has been particularly successful with year 7 and 8 pupils and has received huge support from parents.
Quality of Food: Pupil’s have responded well to the new school food and take up has increased. The feedback from parents and carers has also been excellent and they particularly praise the style and quality of the food.
Prue Leith, Chair of the School Food Trust, formally opened the school’s newly refurbished restaurant and kitchen in December 2009. She commented that : ‘The Kings School is giving its boys exactly the sort of lunch I wish every child could have: freshly cooked, locally sourced, self serve, sit-down-with-knife-and-fork, hot dinner! And a different dish every day for a month so they develop a wide palate. The kitchen is state-of-the-art, the dining room is fresh and bright, the chef is organised and enthusiastic, the staff are lovely with the boys, and the boys have time to relax and eat. They love it.’
School Meal take up: The school has achieved a 100% increase in their onsite take up of school meals. Currently, the take up of paid school meals is in excess of 230 a day. The school has a small number of Free School Meal pupils (less than 10) and the take up is at 100%. Two years ago, the school catering service was making £250.00 per day. However, this year, the service has been taking on average £850.00 per day supplemented by external income.
The King’s Secondary School also provides outsourced meals for 4 junior schools currently around 250 meals per day (28,500 a year) since October 2008. A further planned expansion to one additional junior school is planned for January 2010 which will require an extra 50 hot meals to be produced, daily.
As part of the service the school delivers, retrieves and cleans all catering items for customer schools. School meals are delivered using Thermoport containers, which have been procured from BGL Rieber.
What were the Difficulties?
Getting the funding secured was the most difficult aspect to this project. The original forecast budget of approximately £80,000 was totally inadequate for the depth of work needed in the kitchen area to provide the necessary infrastructure. The kitchen refurbishment cost 80% of the final £220,000 overall project cost. To raise the remaining amount the school managed to persuade the Local Authority that they could support local schools through the provision of daily hot meals. The Local Authority awarded the school an initial sum of £35,000. This funding was doubled with the successful delivery of an on-site pilot feeding scheme to an adjacent junior school.
The timeframe given to undertake the majority of the work and installation was incredibly short for a project of this size and scope. Only five weeks were allocated to strip and rebuild the facility which was to open in early September 2008.
What would you have done differently?
Incorporate a walk-in freezer room to chill and freeze food, not consumed on the day. This would enable catering staff to exploit the capacity of the large cooking vessels.
Future Priorities:
- To provide a refectory in the sixth form centre
- To install a canopy shelter adjacent to the lower foyer for packed lunch pupils
- To extend the range of ‘grab and go’ food available from the vending machines.
