Schools encouraged to go for Food For Life Award

Educaterers are encouraging schools to enrol before the end of the academic year if they want support to achieve the Soil Association’s Food for Life Award. The independent award scheme is designed to engage, motivate and involve everyone and is a brilliant way to embed food education in everyday learning.

A Food for Life Schools Award demonstrates that your school is doing fantastic work to provide healthy school meals, great lunchtimes and food education that has a positive impact on both pupils and the wider community in terms of engagement, attainment and well-being through engaging them in growing food, cooking from scratch, connecting with local farms and putting food at the centre of the curriculum.

Educaterers hold the Food for Life Served Here (FFLSH) Silver Catering Mark in recognition of the fact that their school catering teams serve local, fresh and honest food made with quality ingredients which is prepared and served in a setting that takes school pupils’ health and well-being seriously. This means that any school catered for by Educaterers has already achieved 13 out of the 27 criteria for the Bronze School Award.

Food for Life in Warwickshire is in the final year of its current commission and Public Health are keen to continue funding the programme; but with challenging financial targets this could be the last chance for some schools to enrol and get one-to-one support, resources and training to achieve their Food For Life Award for free.

The Food for Life scheme started in schools – and over 10,000 schools now serve food to FFLSH standards – but you will also find Food for Life meals served in many other places including universities, colleges, early years settings, hospitals and care homes. Over 1.7 million Food for Life meals are served a day all around the UK.

Holding the Award shows that you are making positive contributions to the health, wellbeing and education of your pupils through the following four sections:

Food Quality lets your staff, pupils and parents know that the majority of food served in your school is freshly prepared, free from undesirable trans fats, sweeteners and additives, is cooked by trained catering staff, and uses ingredients from sustainable and ethical sources.

Food Leadership empowers pupils, staff and parents to develop a positive food culture in school.

Food Education gets pupils growing food, cooking from scratch and learning where their food comes from.

Community & Partnerships supports schools to share their learning, engage with their local communities and encourage parents to get involved

In addition, Educaterers can support individual schools to achieve the Food For Life Gold Standard by serving a Gold menu upon request. For more information and to enrol, contact Valerie Meehan, Warwickshire Local Programme Manager for Soil Association Food for Life, email vmeehan@soilassociation.org