Since April 2009, local authorities (LAs) have provided school lunch take up data not only for their own catering or contracted services but for all schools across the LA.
Statistics on the take up of school lunches in England
National and local authority level school lunch take up figures for 2010-2011, are available here:
www.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk/documents/annualsurvey6/statisticalrelease
The full annual survey report for 2010-2011 is available here:
www.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk/documents/annualsurvey6
Previous survey findings
National and local authority level school lunch take up figures for 2009-2010, are available here:
www.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk/documents/annualsurvey5/statisticalrelease
The full annual survey report for 2009-2010 is available here:
www.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk/documents/annualsurvey5
Earlier annual survey reports can be found here:
www.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk/surveysandmonitoring#annualsurvey
Collecting take up data from schools
School meal take up data are collected from schools by local authorities and reported to The Trust at the end of each financial year, via the Trust’s annual survey of local authorities which is conducted in partnership with the Local Authority Caterers Association (LACA). Current annual survey guidance and documentation is available here:
www.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk/annualsurvey
School meal take up must be based on data for the whole financial year (1st April to 31st March). To facilitate the calculation of school lunch take up for the year, schools need to record the following data on a daily or weekly basis:
Primary and special schools
- number of paid meals
- number of Free School Meals (FSMs)
Secondary schools, CTCs and academies
- total lunchtime paid meal income (total till receipts), including any income from meals served at mid-morning break which are considered to form part of school lunch provision*
- number of Free School Meals (FSMs)
*More information on factoring mid-morning break income into take up calculations is available here.
www.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk/faqs/schoollunchtakeup
Resources for schools and local authorities
Tracker tools
The Trust has developed a take up tracker tool and user guide to help schools to record and monitor their school lunch take up. When data are correctly entered on a daily or weekly basis, the tool automatically calculates take up according to the School Food Trust standardised method and creates a termly graph and take up summary. The tracking tool can be used to record take up on a regular basis so that data are available for local authorities to report to the Trust in May each year as part of the annual survey. The tools are available here:
www.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk/resources/trackertool
School Food Trust take up calculation templates
The annual percentage take up of school lunches for each school can be calculated using the appropriate School Food Trust take up calculation template for either primary schools (including special schools) or secondary schools (including CTCs and academies). The templates have the same layout as the annual survey and require annual data. The annual data must be aggregated from information recorded daily or weekly.
The templates are provided in Excel format with automated calculations. They can be printed out if needed:
Take up data template for primary and special schools.
Click here to download (MS Excel doc 296KB)
Take up data template for secondary, CTCs and academies.
Click here to download (MS Excel doc 232KB)
Further support
Further guidance will be provided to local authorities at the time of data collection. If you have any queries why not check to see if your question has already been asked before in our FAQ section here:
www.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk/faqs/schoollunchtakeup
Alternatively please contact info@childrensfoodtrust.org.uk.
