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Cucina Catering - inspiring dissatisfied students to give school meals a try again

Thinking not of themselves as a school meals company but as a good food company Cucina have achieved a rise in uptake from 10% to over 65%.

Canteen Rescue Batley Girls High School

Batley Girls High School's Canteen Rescue story

Batley Girls High School embarked on a major new building project to address two issues - the need to give Year 7 pupils their own dining area and a lack…

Greenfield Primary School's Canteen Rescue story

Greenfield Primary School in Walsall had already made small changes to lunchtime but desperately needed to replace their old and cumbersome furniture.…

Langford Primary School

Primary School in London borough of Fulham addresses unhealthy packed lunches with dramatic increase in take up of school meals.

The Dukeries College, Nottinghamshire

Faced with losing half of their kitchen and dining room facilities, this secondary school in Nottingham has concentrated efforts on introducing a whole…



Case study

The Dukeries College, Nottinghamshire

Faced with losing half of their kitchen and dining room facilities, this secondary school in Nottingham has concentrated efforts on introducing a whole school approach to their school meal service.

Summary:

Liz Dunmore, Catering Manager at The Dukeries College in Nottinghamshire, has been involved in a light touch direct school engagement project with the School Food Trust. This project is aimed at schools that wish to improve their current school meal provision using advice, resources and support from the Trust. This support is telephone based only and is held over a period of up to eight weeks.

Background Information:

The Dukeries has 1200 pupils on roll and a school meal take up of 45%: good in comparison with both the national and the regional average of 36.5%. 202 pupils are registered for free school meals, with a take up of 75%. Liz was keen from the outset to raise the number of young people registering for a free school meal, as well as looking at the number actually eating one once they have been registered. The kitchen and dining environment also emerged as areas that the school wanted some advice on, particularly with the planned move to using one room instead of two.

Actions Taken:

Liz has taken the lead on making the improvements in the school, with the help of colleagues, and in particular the ICT Co-ordinator who has recently taken on responsibility for the Student Council. In addition, Liz also recruited another colleague to support her with improvements. This colleague will be helping Liz with MADGe, which is the Trust’s Marketing and Design Generator which enables schools to produce promotional campaigns, posters, menu templates and table toppers. School Food Trust resources have been used to address the following points:

  • Free School Meal posters have been displayed around the school to improve awareness and increase those eligible for FSM to register. These posters also give contact details so parents know who to speak to at school for support and guidance.
  • Fresh Look Guides were used to look at ways to make changes within the kitchen and dining rooms, focusing on how to tackle queuing and noise problems. Liz found these especially useful as she “was able to pass them straight onto colleagues to put to use and they were very relevant”.
  • The school meals service has taken a higher profile with students using the School Council Pack in School Council meetings
  • Liz investigated MADGe and looked into how this could be utilised for promotional purposes
  • The school will be submitting a Canteen Rescue grant application

Outcomes:

  • Discussions have taken place with the school to increase FSM registrations, and encourage parents to apply. Subsequently, letters were sent home to parents to encourage registration, using letter templates provided by the Trust. Also, a promotional display featuring free school meals was mounted, targeting parents in February on Academic Interview day when many parents were visiting the school.
  • Liz involved a colleague to work on marketing the school meal service using MADGe, to produce professional looking posters and other appealing collateral to display around the school or send home to parents
  • The young people are involved in an ICT project to design a dining room. The school hopes to be successful in gaining a grant to support this from the Canteen Rescue fund.

Evaluation:

Liz said that she found “the process and the support really helpful, especially having one contact person within the Trust”, and that she “would definitely recommend the project to other schools”.

The relationship has developed further and in the future the Trust will be working with Liz to ensure that the changes to the kitchen and dining facilities are implemented as smoothly as possible, under the Making Room for Dinner initiative.

Contact details:

If you would like further information regarding this case study then please feel free to contact the School Food Trust on 0800 089 5001. Alternatively please feel free to email any enquiries to info@sft.gsi.gov.uk Thank you.


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