Public Sector Sustainable Food Procurement Initiative - Southdown Community Nursery and Infant School
Case Study: Southdown Community Nursery and Infant SchoolRegion: Bath
Organisation: LEA, Soil Association
Description:
Southdown Infants is the only primary school in Bath and North-East Somerset unitary authority which has taken the opportunity to run its own school meals service. Moreover, a substantial proportion of infant pupils (more than 60 per cent) choose to tuck into a freshly cooked meal all year - with higher numbers still in the autumn and winter term. The nursery children are also be able to have a hot lunch since the expansion to become an all day facility last autumn.
Four years ago the school opted out of the local authority contract to go it alone because a lot of schools in the area were going to sandwiches only in order to free up the kitchen space for a classroom. Quite a lot now only have this service. "The children here are predominantly from an area where families face many challenges so we felt it was important to provide a proper hot meal at lunchtime," says the head Gill Culley.
By taking control of the meal provision themselves the school has found it gained a lot of flexibility and can be much more creative with the menus. "We have two roast lunches a week," admits the Headmistress, "but roast meat, potatoes and at least two other vegetables is by far and away the children's overwhelming favourite. These meals are also followed by a lighter dessert which is a substantial improvement over the pressed meat and heavy hot puddings that irritated me so much under the old regime."
Benefits
- By using local shops, the school has raised the ingredient spend up to 75 pence per child a day and held prices at £1.35 (though 35 per cent of children qualify for free school meals). This has improved the nutritional content of each meal.
- The kitchen also serves mostly local and organic vegetables. It already serves a largely organic fresh fruit salad most days or a piece of fruit as an alternative to the cooked pudding. This means a boost to the local economy as well as healthier, fresher produce being served.
- The Headteacher is confident that eating together provides an important social experience for many of the children in her care, not least because the kitchen makes a lot of effort to cater for special diets and vegetarians to ensure they are included in the meal times.
- The enthusiasm fed at lunch has also helped sustain the 'hungry hippo breakfast club', set up 4 years ago with funding won through an excellence award from Education Extra, the charity that supports out-of-school-hours learning. This attracts a regular clientele of 56 children who are charged only 30p per day.
- The school also runs a health food tuck shop that offers organic carrots, dried fruit and fresh seasonal fruit in bags for 10 pence per portion. "We always take £10 a day," says the Headteacher "so we know that over 100 children come to that." Linked to this there is also a bag scheme for parents and staff supplied through the local food co-op where for £2.50 a week they can pick up a bag of organic fruit or vegetables to use at home. This continues at home the good work done at school and involves the whole family in raising their awareness of sustainable issues.
- As a highly profitable fundraiser, children over 5 get milk for £3 per half term. "If we went through the school milk scheme," says the Headmistress, "the children would have to pay £6.50 per half term, and we would make no money. As it is, because we source it ourselves they pay much less and the school can still pocket a significant margin that we can use to meet other needs in the school." As she points out, this is one of the best things about running their own catering arrangements. The school can choose to run meals on a non-profit basis if it wants to, or where it makes money this isn't then 'lost' across a contractor's global budget.
Lessons learned during implementation
- Setting up on their own meant Southdown had to accept staff changes. Of the two cooks the school took over from the local authority supplier, one departed rapidly for a new job (possibly out of sheer terror at what she was being asked to take on). The other proved unable to rise to the challenge of running what amounts to their own small business within the school and has had to be replaced.
- Sadly, there has as yet been little or no interest from the local health or education authorities in the achievements the school is delivering on healthy eating and no funding for the schools initiatives. However as discovered, other sources of funding are available, see link below.
Future developments
The school is looking into having a salad bar, while also looking to source more real meat direct from local and organic suppliers. The school is researching a way of highlighting for children which items are really healthy at lunchtime.
Further information
Southdown Infant School
Mount Road, Southdown, Bath, Bath & North East Somerset, BA2 1LG
Telephone: 01225 424950 Fax: 01225 310051
Email:southdown_inf@bathnes.gov.uk
Website: www.continyou.org.uk/content.php?CategoryID=124
Headteacher: Mrs Sue Adams
Type: Infant Age Range: 3-7
For information on funding for out of hours learning:
www.educationextra.org.uk/awards/index.html
Page last modified:
23 September 2005
Page published: 2 June 2004