EB top ten: outstanding school catering

It is widely recognised that healthy school food boosts academic attainment, enhances the wellbeing and behaviour of pupils, and helps tackle the rising obesity levels in school children. Education Business picks its top ten schools that provide outstanding catering

1

Brynteg Secondary school, Wales

Welsh school Brynteg Secondary scoops the top spot for its collaborative and holistic approach to improving catering, which has seen school meal intake increase by 17 per cent. To find out why the school was experiencing a decrease in school meal uptake, the catering team worked closely with the school pupil council, food and fitness group, and healthy school co-coordinator. They underwent a customer consultation to find out what the pupils were actually eating and what they would like to see on the menus. Pupils were invited to new product trials to get feedback on whether items were suitable to go onto the menu. The catering team arranged for menus to be advertised on the school website and had all daily healthy promotions advertised around the school on the TV screens Fruit smoothies, a fruit bar and a pick and mix salad bar were introduced after the consultation with the pupils. A pre order system was also introduced to support reduced queuing times. A 17 per cent increase in school meal uptake was seen as a result of working with the school, the pupils and the lunchtime supervisors. Due to the success of this project work, this approach has been rolled out to the other secondary schools in the borough during 2017.