SCHOOL DINNERS

[Stanley]

SCHOOL DINNERS

30 March 2005

Once upon a time in what seems now like a far away galaxy we used to have milk and dinners at school (1940s actually). During morning break we all had a free third of a pint of fresh whole milk and at dinnertime we were served a hot main course and a substantial pudding. The school I went to was in a very deprived area and whilst I was lucky enough to have parents who made sure I got breakfast, gave me a hot tea and supper when I got home and could afford to pay the dinner money once a week, many pupils were on free school meals and may not have been as well fed at home. The general consensus was that this was a marvellous regime that cared for children and alleviated some of the worst affects of poverty.
Alright, with hindsight, the cabbage could be soggy, the meals were delivered in hot boxes and might have been kept warm for a couple of hours, but we didn’t see it that way, the cabbage was soggy at home as well so we didn’t think there was anything wrong with it. In those days supply chains were short and the food we were getting was reasonably local, certainly English and was plain home-cooking. We had no diversions like soft drinks and so virtually everyone drank their milk which was pasteurised and fresh from local farms. We had a school nurse as well who inspected us about every three months and referred us to the dentist, the optician or the doctor if she thought it was necessary. There was a ‘school dentist’ but you could choose your own optician. I have an idea that these two services were free.
As I write we are in the middle of a media storm which has been triggered by Jamie Oliver, a celebrity chef who did a series of programmes looking at school meals. He famously fulminated against junk food like ‘Turkey Twizzlers’, strange convoluted strips of reconstituted turkey meat and fat, basically made out of the waste left over after jointing turkeys for crowns and drumsticks. One of the crucial facts that emerged was that in England only 37p was allocated for ingredients for each school meal. This compares with about 50p in Scotland, 54p in prisons and about £1 in the army. The government made pre-election noises which were largely flannel but have now been pressured into promising that £280million of new money will be put into providing better school meals. The question is, how will this happen and what will be done to make sure that standards rise.
On average 1 pupil in 3 of those who take school meals gets them free and this is probably their main meal of the day. Nobody can be certain how many parents are serving healthy food at home or even making sure that the child is properly topped up with tea, supper and breakfast. What is certain is that 1 child in 4 in the UK is officially assessed as being in ‘food poverty’. The teachers say that in schools where the meals have been modified to an acceptable nutritional standard the pupils are better behaved and have more energy in the afternoon. All told, a very powerful case for setting minimum nutritional standards for school meals, something that Scotland has already done. Unfortunately the government hasn’t bitten this bullet and keeps referring to amorphous concepts like ‘parent choice’ and ‘internal supervision in schools’ by teachers.
Here’s a paragraph out of today’s Private Eye on the subject: ‘The school meals debate started when the Tories abolished nutritional regulation in the 1980 Education Act. In 1992 Robin Cook embarrassed the Tories by claiming that the restoration of school meals nutritional regulations had been dropped from the Health white paper. In 1996 the then shadow education secretary David Blunkett told the Unison union conference that contract caterers were doing a poor job and that “Short term savings may be doing damage to the well-being and educational performance of our children. We need to set standards to regulate and monitor this crucial service”. He repeated his call for nutritional regulation in 1997 but once in power, Labour simply followed the Tories and issued 'voluntary' guidelines drawn up with the help of the catering firms.’
So, the bottom line is that sixty years ago we had a properly regulated universal system in place, today we haven’t. School meals isn’t the only area where we have seen retrograde steps. We used to have Wages Boards which had the power to set statutory minimum wages in key service industries. I’m not saying that overall we are worse off than we were then, that would be ridiculous, but there are definite signs that some of the safety nets we had in place to protect the most vulnerable people in society have melted away under the onslaught of privatisation and too much reliance placed on ‘market forces’. School meals is a prime example and it’s about time we came to our collective senses.

30 March 2005

[Big Kev]

I remember the third of a pint bottles of milk at primary school, this would have been between 1966 and 1972. School dinners were prepared and cooked on the premises. My mother was a school cook eventually running a kitchen, she retired over 30 years ago when changes started regarding how school dinners were prepared. She didn't agree with it and, not wanting to adopt the changes, took retirement.