More free school meals
Local Authorities and Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) are being asked to bid to take part in a £20m, two year pilot scheme for free school meals, Children’s Secretary Ed Balls and Health Secretary Alan Johnson announced today.
With the pilots due to start in September 2009, more young children will be able to receive free lunches. The scheme will be available to three local authorities with two areas testing the offer of free school lunches to all primary school children and a third area testing the idea of extending eligibility to free school meals.
The pilots will help test how free school meals impact on the education and health of children, and we hope local authorities and PCTs will come forward to bid to take part in the pilots.
Take up of school lunches is increasing in primary schools and these pilots will help collect more evidence about the impact of providing more school meals for free.
Over one million children could already benefit from free school meals but too many children who are currently eligible do not claim their entitlement. A report published this week by the School Food Trust says that a fear of being singled out or stigmatised for eating free school meals, as well as the dining environment, are both key factors. This includes issues such as being embarrassed about family income and the decoration and atmosphere in the school dining hall.In parallel to the free school meals pilot work, we want to increase take up amongst those children and young people currently eligible for free school meals.
The government says it wants to do this by improving schools’ understanding of the benefits of healthy eating, introducing new methods in the dining hall and working with parents to encourage children and young people to take up their entitlement.
The Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF) and the Department of Health (DH) have jointly allocated £20m to the pilots over the next two years and participating LAs and PCTs will be expected to join the pilots on the basis of matched funding. The pilots will formally start in the summer term, with pupils receiving their free lunch from September 2009. The summer term will be used to prepare and establish the pilots and the evaluation arrangements. The pilots will run to July 2011. Volunteers are also being sought to act as control groups where current free school meal eligibility will be maintained.
Ed Balls and Alan Johnson announced on 24 September 2008 a new £20m Free School Meals (FSM) pilot project, to be run jointly between the DCSF and the DH and have now written to Directors of Children’s Services and to Chief Executives of Primary Care Trusts with details of the pilots proposed to run and to invite them to express an interest in taking part, should they meet the specification for doing so.
A copy of that letter can be viewed at: http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/educationoverview/briefing/freemealsandtrips/3. DCSF and DH are inviting bids from local authorities that meet the following criteria: o Participating areas must have at least 15% of pupils currently eligible for FSM;
o Average school lunch take-up in the area must be below 50%;
o Participating areas must not already have piloted FSMs (unless this has involved arrangements to market school lunches and encourage take-up by, for example, offering a week of FSM to reception children);
o Schools involved in the pilots must be able to provide additional, high quality meals, have sufficient kitchen and good dining environment and capacity, appropriately trained staff and good lunchtime arrangements;
o Participating areas must agree to co-operate in any evaluation arrangements.4. The pilot will run for two years with the option of extending it into a third year. Feedback from a study in Hull indicates that two to three years is probably the optimum timeframe for any pilot, as this allows sufficient time to maximise take-up levels and allows time for measurable benefits to emerge (in particular changes to BMI, but also general health and wellbeing, changes of eating habits at home and behaviour changes).
Below is a list of Local Authorities that match the criteria and are eligible to bid for the pilots. Please note this list is indicative. Information on school lunch take up is not comprehensive; from April 2009 local authorities will be required to provide information for all schools across their authority. There may be other LAs who are eligible. The Dept says it will welcome expressions of interest from LAs who think they may be eligible or those who are at the margin and put forward innovative proposals.
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The School Food Trust report ‘Please Sir? Can We Have More? Is available at http://www.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk/documents/pleasesir