Project uptake – increasing the uptake of school meals in south Hampshire – report of findings

Executive summary

A joint study between HampshireHealthySchools and Hampshire County Council Catering Service (HC3S) has been carried out by Independent Healthy Schools Consultant, Debbie Jones.The aim was to increase the uptake of school meals at identified low uptake schools across South Hampshire, and identify a method which could be adopted to increase uptake on a more widespread basis.

The study identified that 82% of children, given the chance to try a school meal, thought the food tasted good and only 8% reported that they would not want a school meal again. Furthermore parents and school representatives are largely in agreement that school meals provide good value for money.

Barriers to children choosing a school meal include a number of factors the most influential of which appears to be friends not being able to sit together if one eats a packed lunch, the other a hot meal. All the factors are outside the direct control of the caterer. Therefore it is concluded that in seeking to increase uptake a whole school approach must to be adopted, involving partnership working between HC3S and school staff and active participation from parents and children.

Through the project five critical factors have been identified that are often exhibited in low uptake schools:

  • the school either consciously or unconsciously lacks commitment to school meals
  • myths and misconceptions around school meals on the part of parents and sometimes school staff
  • relationship issues between the kitchen staff and school, influencing service
  • poor communication between HC3S and schools, influencing publicity and promotion of school meals
  • the perception that a healthy packed lunch will cost a parent considerably less than a school meal, influencing choice.

A methodology for tackling low uptake has been developed together with a series of tools to support the process.

The study has highlighted the health concerns related to
pre-packed processed foods and snacks, which are now found in the majority of children’s lunch boxes. It recommends that HC3S raise awareness of the legislation ensuring school meals meet strict nutritional standards and promote school meals as thehealthy choicefor your child’s school lunch. It is also suggested that active promotion to increase the uptake of school meals would provide a positive health intervention supporting strategies to tackle rising levels of childhood obesity.

In conclusion, children enjoy school meals and parents consider them to be good value for money. The way to increase uptake lies in the continuing development of relationships between HC3S the wider school community and targeted promotion of the product.

Introduction

Project uptakewas jointly commissioned by HampshireHealthySchools and HC3S in October 2012. The aim has been to identify the barriers to children choosing school meals and enable more children to have access to a healthy and nutritious meal at lunchtime. Ultimately the objective was to increase school meal uptake within a defined group of ‘low uptake’ pilot schools and identify best practice which could be adopted in low uptake schools in the future.

21 schools in the south of Hampshire were identified by HC3S as being of low uptake, (defined as under 30% uptake of school meals). Of the 21 schools, 17 responded positively to the invitation to be included as a pilot school. Two indicated that school meals were not an issue of priority at the current time, and two schools failed to declare in interest.

The following table summarises the low uptake schools invited onto the project, their average school meal uptake figures (Spring Term 2011) and a red, amber, green (RAG) rating depending on their level of engagement in the project.

Table 1:Low uptake schools

School / % Uptake Spring 2011
ElsonInfant School / 28.5%
GomerInfant School
GomerJuniorSchool / 29.5%
HarrisonPrimary School / 21.3%
HorndeanInfant School / 28.5%
HorndeanJuniorSchool / 28.4%
Lee on the SolentInfant School / 26%
Lee on the SolentJuniorSchool / 24.3%
Northern Infant School / 25.8%
Northern JuniorSchool / 29.9%
OrchardLeaInfant School / 26.7%
OrchardLeaJuniorSchool / 24.3%
PeelCommonInfant School / 18.5%
PurbrookInfant School / 19.3%
PurbrookJuniorSchool / 27.7%
QueensInclosurePrimary School / 24.9%
St ThomasMoore RC Primary School / 26.4%
SwanmorePrimary School / 27.9%
WhiteleyPrimary School / 19.6%
WickhamPrimary School / 28.3%
WicorPrimary School / 24.9%

Key

Not actively engaged but received grant
Have taken part but are not fully engaged
Actively supported project from outset
Did not accept offer to become a pilot school

Project approach

The project co-ordinator, a healthy schools consultant, has experience of working with schools to develop and deliver improved health outcomes for children and young people and has a good understanding of the whole school approach. A project team was formed around each school involving the HC3S operations manager, district manager, and the project co-ordinator. Schools were offered a £500 grant as an incentive to take part in the project.

The following approach to working with schools was adopted:

  • meet with headteacher (headteachers where an infant and junior school are working together) or representatives from the senior leadership team to complete a feedback questionnaire on current provision of school meals
  • undertake a lunchtime observation in the dining room and eat lunch with the children
  • work with an identified pupil voice group in school, such as a school council, to discuss barriers to take up of school meals and identify opportunities to make them more attractive for children
  • Meet again with senior leadership representative to discuss the emerging problems and solutions and agree an action plan of activities and interventions
  • facilitate the development andimplementation of the action plan to promote the provision of school meals in school and increase uptake.

Key findings

Children enjoy school meals

In seeking to identify the reasons for low uptake of school meals one factor which has clearly come across as not being responsible is the food. When given the chance to eat a school meal most children really enjoy it.

90 children across the pilot schools have completed surveys after taking part in a meal critic activity where they enjoyed a free school meal with the project co-ordinator and representatives from HC3S. Of these 82% reported that the food tasted good and only 2% did not like the meal. Only 8% did not want to eat another hot meal again.

44% of the children who took part in the activity do not regularly eat a school meal.

Graph 1: Meal critic activity feedback on school meals

Barriers to children choosing a school meal

Through discussions with pupil voice groups in school children have highlighted the following barriers to choosing a school meal:

  • social factors
  • queuing
  • portion size
  • parents influence

Social factors have been reported to have a very strong influence over a child’s choice of lunch, particularly for the older children. Lunchtime is an important social time for children and they want to be able to sit with their friends. In schools where capacity in the dining hall is insufficient to enable all children to sit together at once packed lunches are often eaten in the classroom. Even where there is sufficient capacity to enable all children to eat in the dining hall either together or through two sittings, packed lunches and hot meals are often separated.

Portion size is an interesting issue. To meet statutory regulations each school meal must contain 530 calories, approximately one third of the total daily requirement for a child. The meals themselves if eaten in their entirety are quite substantial.With eat all you can meal deals in popular family restaurant chains and the ever increasing
super-sizingof processed foods and snacks such as bags of crisps, cakes and chocolate bars children are led to expect that bigger is the norm. A child’s perception of what constitutes a healthy portion therefore maybe far from the truth and may wellinfluence their perception of the adequacy a school meal.

Parents have a big influence on what their child eats at lunchtime. Of the 90 who were surveyed through the meal critic activity 23% identified their parents as being the main decision maker, 44% reported that their choice of lunch was a joint decision between themselves and their parents. Only one third of children were the exclusive decision maker.

There are a wealth of reasons why parents choose a packed lunch over a school meal. It is suggested that two of these reasons are quite critical however, and these aremisconceptions regarding school meals and perception of cost. Both critical factors are written up in more detail in the following section.

Critical factors exhibited in low uptake schools

The project has revealed five critical factors exhibited by low uptake schools within the pilot.

1The school lacks commitment to school meals
The lack of commitment from schools in promoting school meals and improving lunchtimes can be both conscious and unconscious. Many of the pilot schools were open to improving school meals once the agenda had been raised with them and given some level of priority. However, in a number of cases the headteacher clearly did not value school meals as an important part of the school day. Many senior leaders responded better to service improvement rather than increasing uptake as an outcome. Others were more interested in the wider healthy eating agenda, than solely focusing on school meals. Even with a financial incentive and a significant investment of time from HC3S operations managers and district managers, a number of events such as taster sessions and parent workshops failed to be adequately publicised by pilot schools often resulting in low attendance at these events. The office staff play a critical role in enabling the publicity of school meals and relationships need to be built between HC3S and the school office as well as senior leaders.

2School meals – myths and misconceptions
Within the school community there seemed to be a number of misconceptions regarding both the school meal provider, HC3S, and the school meal itself. One headteacher thought the organisation to be profit making and did not appear to realise that HC3S is a part of Hampshire County Council. Many parents and even school staff have been surprised to find out that the food is cooked to order on site. Parents who did taste the food during the project were often pleasantly surprised and reported that it was better than they had expected. It is these misconception around the food served in school that are of concern in influencing parents decision making over what their child will eat at lunch time.
Most of the pilot schools did not realise the wider services offered by HC3S such as healthy eating talks and taster sessions. Some were not even aware of the option for theme days. The need for active promotion of HC3S, their food and services to schools and parents is a key finding from this study.

3Relationship Issues between the kitchen staff and school
During the course of the project it transpired that at least six of the schools had recent or active relationship issues between a member of the kitchen staff and a member of the school staff. It is difficult to measure the impact on uptake but it is expected that this will be an influencing factor. It is recommended that uptake data is reviewed from before and after the situation has become resolved to identify what level of influence relationship issues have on uptake.

4Communication
Schools are notoriously difficult to communicate with, particularly by phone. The issue of communication seems to be exacerbated between HC3S and schools, by the fact that district managers do not have email accounts. On some occasions, in project meetings, district managers have asked a head teacher to contact the operations manager rather than themselves to confirm events. This is observed to reduce the value of the district manager to the headteacher and makes it harder to build personal relationships with HC3S representatives.
There have been situations where HC3S have turned up to taster sessions or parent meetings only to find they are either not expected, or the event has not been publicised. In order to work with schools on what they often consider to be less importantissues such as school meals HC3S would be advised to become more accessible and pro-active in sending out promotional material which can be used by the school. Improving channels of communication between district manager and the school and would help build respect and trust for the district managers who after the unit supervisor are the main face of HC3S.

5Perceived cost of a school meal in comparison with a packed lunch
There is little doubt that £2 for a two course school meal provides good value for money and this is a view largely shared by headteachers and parents alike. However, despite this fact, cost has come across as being a key factor influencing parents decisions over whether their child has a school meal or packed lunch.
A parent focus group revealed that while the meals were seen to provide good value for money most felt they could provide a packed lunch considerably cheaper and found it difficult to justify spending £2 for a child’s lunch.
Parents are very much involved in the decision over whether a child has a school meal with 67% of the 90 children who completed questionnaires following a meal critic activity reporting that either their parents alone, or themselves together with their parents decided what they would eat at lunchtime. Therefore parents are a key target group when it comes to promoting school meals.
In trying to overcome this perception of packed lunches costing so much less that a school meal an activity was carried out with children at three of the pilot schools to create sample lunch boxes and compare their cost and nutritional value with that of a school meal. The average cost of a lunchbox was found to be £1.79, just 21p cheaper than a two course school meal.
Scientific testing of the sample lunchbox’s after being left in an unrefrigerated environment similar to that in school resulted in the growth of two bacteria, both of which could make you ill.

Calories
(KCal) / Fat (g)/
saturates (g) / Sugar / Sodium
(mg) / Cost
Average sample lunch box / 756 / 5.5 tsp/
2 tsp / 13 tsp / 1/3 tsp / £1.79
School lunch / 520 / 4 tsp/
1.3 tsp
(max) / 3.5 tsp
(max) / ¼ tsp
(max) / £2.00
Average lunch box as a proportion of the recommended intake / 145% / 137%/ 162% / 360% / 145% / 90%

School meals the healthy choice for lunch

National research has highlighted a number of concerns over children’s packed lunches and these have been replicated by the children’s lunch box investigations. These include:

  • growing use of pre-packed/processed snacks containing high fat, salt and sugar content
  • use of additives such as monosodium glutamate and sodium nitrate
  • health and safety implications of storage of lunch boxes outside of a refrigerated environment.

By comparison the hot school meal meets strict nutritional standards and provides a balanced meal for primary aged school children. Based on the findings of this work, a family would pay just £8.40 per month extra to enable two children to have a daily hot nutritious school meal in place of a packed lunch.

This information was shared with a parent focus group at OrchardLeaSchool. The parents were very surprised by the cost comparison and even more shocked at the nutritional comparison which demonstrated the high sugar, fat and salt content of processed food contained in many lunch boxes. These parents are interested in the nutritional content of their children’s food, and many reported that the workshop had changed their perceptions and they would now allow their children to choose a school meal at least once or twice a week. The lunch box activity is reported in detail in
Appendix 2.

Very recently the media have started to pick up on of the quality of processed food through documentaries such as The men who made us fat and Dispatches Myths about your five-a-day.Their research suggests that the food industry has capitalised on the publics interest in healthy food by developing products misleadingly marketed as healthy which when investigated further are often full of sugar. A example an Innocent smoothie, heavily marketed as being healthy and contributing to your five-a-day, actually contains more calories than a can of coke. The massive growth in sales of products marketed as healthy and the findings from our focus groups suggests that consumers are very conscious of trying to make healthy choices. This seems an ideal time for HC3S to raise awareness of the regulation over the nutritional value of school meals and promote them as being the healthy choicefor your child’s school lunch.

Furthermore, active promotion to increase the uptake of school meals would seem to provide a positive health intervention supporting strategies to tackle rising levels of childhood obesity.