News from School Councils UK
School Councils Really Improve School Meals by Asher Jacobsberg
How successful were pupils at improving food in your school?
It's no surprise that 75% percent of school councils are helping to improve food in their schools, but according to a survey carried out by School Councils UK this month a huge percentage of them (92%) are successful.
By making school meals healthier, tastier and improving variety and the 'dining experience' 41% of school councils have increased the number of people eating and enjoying good school dinners.
But school councils haven't just been working on school-cooked meals, they've also been "getting a healthy tuck shop at break too", "encouraging healthy packed lunches" and setting up a "captain's table once a week [for[ children who make good choices with manners, choosing healthy food and eating all [their] dinner."
Schools have been doing a great variety of things from ensuring that cutlery is clean to interviewing and helping to pick new catering contractors, designing new dining rooms and even setting up "an independent catering enterprise with the emphasis on wholesome and nutritious food, freshly prepared and locally sourced."
The full results of the survey are below:
| Results | Answers | Percentage |
| What phase school are you from? | ||
| Infant | 6 | 4% |
| Junior | 7 | 4% |
| Primary | 91 | 55% |
| Cross-phase | 5 | 3% |
| Secondary | 53 | 32% |
| Didn't say | 4 | 2% |
| 1. Has your school council (or other pupil group) been involved in improving food in your school? | ||
| Yes | 125 | 75% |
| No | 34 | 20% |
| Don't know | 7 | 4% |
| 2. In what way did pupils improve the food at your school? (more than one could be selected) | ||
| Improving flow in the dining room | 28 | 22% |
| Increasing variety | 67 | 54% |
| Making food healthier | 49 | 39% |
| Making food tastier | 30 | 24% |
| Other | 22 | 18% |
| 3. How successful do you think the pupils' efforts were at improving food in your school? | ||
| Very Successful | 22 | 17% |
| Successful | 47 | 36% |
| Somewhat successful | 51 | 39% |
| Not very successful | 4 | 3% |
| Not at all successful | 3 | 2% |
| Don't know | 4 | 3% |
| 4. Has the number of people eating school meals gone up as a result of the pupils' efforts? | ||
| Yes (we've checked the numbers) | 32 | 25% |
| We think it has (but haven't checked) | 21 | 16% |
| It's stayed about the same | 53 | 41% |
| Fewer people now eat school meals | 5 | 4% |
| I don't know | 17 | 13% |
| 5. What one thing would most help your school council to improve food at your school? | ||
| Examples of other schools' successful projects | 55 | 33% |
| Funding for food-related projects | 52 | 31% |
| Free resources (e.g. project planning tools) | 22 | 13% |
| Something else (please specify) | 19 | 11% |
| Training for pupils | 10 | 6% |
| Training for staff | 8 | 5% |
