School Background
Cherbourg Primary School is situated near the centre of Eastleigh, a small town midway between Winchester and Southampton. The main building dates from 1911 and has considerable character.
Cherbourg School There are around 330 pupils at Cherbourg Primary ranging from 4 –11 years. They have two classes per year group, with class sizes between twenty and twenty nine in every year, 73 pupils have school dinners and there are around 55 pupils eligible for Free School Meals.
“In this above average size primary school there are currently more boys than girls. The balance varies considerably between classes. The proportion of pupils from minority ethnic backgrounds, or who have English as an additional language, is lower than the national average. Thirteen different languages are currently spoken and twenty different cultures represented in the school. The proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals is slightly above the national average. A higher proportion of pupils have learning difficulties and disabilities. Currently eleven pupils have statements of special educational need. The school offers weekly sessions to support parents, for adult learning, a creche, after school and holiday care. A local authority resourced provision, the ‘Jarjum’s room’, for pupils with emotional, social, and behavioural difficulties, was started at the school three years ago. This currently supports seven pupils aged 7 to 11 years.”
(Ofsted, 2008)
Project Team:
- Head Teacher
- Head Cook
- Catering Services H3CS
- Avail Consultant
- School Food Trust Contact
Case Study
Read the case study on Cherbourg Primary here:
www.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk/casestudy/cherbourgprimaryschool
Final Report
So how do you stretch an already efficient kitchen to see where capacity problems lie?
The pilots would give the opportunity to test the capacity of the kitchen in its current state – i.e. identify existing bottlenecks, and to measure the impact of any changes in the kitchen on the ability to meet increased demand, such as the installation of new equipment.
Cherbourg proved the perfect site to take this on. The staff were up to the challenge, and they needed to be, with take up increasing from 34% in September to a huge 92% on the week of the first FSM trial! This represented cooking on average an additional 173 meals per day. No small feat given that this was working with existing equipment…and all with a smile on their face!
Bottlenecks:
An additional 20hrs were required for dishwashing (20% of total staff time) – New dishwasher to be installed
Oven was unsuitable – 30 pizzas were prepared in advance however the kitchen staff struggled to get them through the existing convection oven. With normal cooking time between 15-20mins they were finding it was taking anywhere up to 30mins as the oven was overloaded and losing heat due to frequent opening. A similar situation occurred with jacket and roast potatoes. This resulted in the third sitting having to be kept in the classroom and delaying lunch by 15mins. – New Combination oven to be installed
The new Combi can cook up to 11 trays of pizzas in only 15mins, and cooked 280 portions of potatoes at once in around 20-25mins. In fact staff had to adjust their practices to get used to such short cooking times! In addition, they can still use the existing convection oven simultaneously to cook desserts or other items.
In the new layout these ovens were moved to the servery side, reducing the distance when replenishing items.
New Baine Marie servery had a significant impact on serving time as it only required 2 members of staff (one for main, one for desserts), compared with 3 previously. This freed up the third member to focus on dishwashing and replenishment.
On the equipment front sometimes small things can make a big difference – such as a Rubbermaid tray stacker. This vertical tray stacker allows trays of pizzas, potatoes, desserts etc to be prepared and stacked ready for use in a small vertical space. Then when it is time to put them into the oven it is a simple process of wheeling it to the oven.
Overall Achievements for the project:
- Increase in meal capacity to a level that can support 100% of students on roll through the introduction of new equipment.
- Decrease in cooking times through the introduction of new equipment.
- Decrease in staff times through the introduction of new equipment.
Cherbourg Primary School Report
