SCHOOL MEALS
Corporate Watch
September 2005
8. Links and further resources
Get involved as a parent or teacher in your school's meal provision- or campaign against privatisation in schools.
On food quality in school meals
The Soil Association has many resources on the school meals issue and campaigns for higher nutritional standards, and for more sourcing of local and organic food. See its report 'Food for Life: Do our children need healthy food?' (www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/9f788a2d1160a9e580256a71002a3d2b/65a3b4988446e96280256db400380e4c/$FILE/Healthy%20local%20organic%20school%20meals.pdf). The Soil Association also have a 'School meals action pack' (www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/9f788a2d1160a9e580256a71002a3d2b/b71c3714e692129980256db400380e4d!OpenDocument) and other resources for teachers (www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/GetInvolved/ffl.html). Local Food Links projects, steered by the Soil Association, work for more local sourcing in school catering sourcing practices. The Powys Public Procurement Partnership was set up between Powys Food Links, Cardiff University, and the Soil Asssociation. See also the report, 'Relocalising the food chain: the role of creative public procurement' (www.organic.aber.ac.uk/library/RelocalisingProcurement.pdf) The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) stresses the need for good quality, healthy and easily accessible free school meals as crucial for children in low income families to tackle disadvantage. See its School Meals Fact Sheet, www.cpag.org.uk/info/Povertyarticles/Poverty%20120/SchMealssupple.pdf. Recommendations include a 'universal free school meals service,' to get rid of the inequality and stigma in the system which results in 20% of those entitled to free meals not taking them up.www.cpag.org.uk/campaigns/school_meals.htm The Health Education Trust (HET) www.healthedtrust.com/index.htm is a charity working with young people to encourage healthy lifestyles. Amongst other things it looks into issues around vending machines, and has set up an Independent National Database of Information on Catering Excellence in Schools (INDICATES) to 'facilitate easy access and communication of relevant information.' www.healthedtrust.com/pages/natldb.htm Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming is a network promoting more sustainable food and agriculture policies. Its Children's Food Bill campaign has supported a bill currently in parliament - you can support the bill and contact your MP about it at: www.sustainweb.org/child_index.asp The bill includes tighter nutritional standards for schools and action against vending machines. School Nutrition Action Groups (SNAGs) are school based alliances involving staff, pupils, caterers and parents to improve the quality and range of food. In many instances SNAGs have succeeded in ensuring real change in the system of provision (see Resistance and Alternatives section above) The Caroline Walker Trust produces quantitative nutritional standards and has advised on the quality of school meals. Jamie Oliver has a 'Feed me better' campaign (www.feedmebetter.com/) as well as information about school dinners on his website.
On education and school meals as public service
UNISON, the public services union, and the National Union of Teachers are good places to look for resources on the impact of privatisation on school meals, and on other education and local authority services. UNISON have produced a report on 'School meals in the 21st century' (www.unison.org.uk/acrobat/12416.pdf), and reports on issues impacting on all local authority services including ' Best value and the two-tier workforce in local government' (www.unison.org.uk/acrobat/B318.pdf) and 'How the big five accountancy firms influence and profit from privatisation policy,' (www.unison.org.uk/acrobat/B362.pdf)See the NUT's briefing on schools' role in promoting child health and combating commercialisation (www.teachers.org.uk/resources/pdf/combating_comm.pdf) See also the Campaign for State Education www.casenet.org.uk/business.html For further information on PFI: www.partnershipsuk.org.uk/projectsdatabase/projectsdatabase.html has information on all PFI/PPP contracts in England and Wales. See also UNISON's 'Positively public' briefing from June 2005 (www.unison.org.uk/acrobat/b1923.pdf) and its report 'What's wrong with PFI in schools?' from 2003(www.unison.org.uk/acrobat/13672.pdf) The National Consumer Council has produced 'Guidelines on sponsorship in schools' (www.norden.org/nicemail/issues/six/guidelines.htm)
Another article on privatisation in education: Martin Wicks, 'Stop poisoning our children,' Socialist Unity February 2005
www.socialistunitynetwork.co.uk/voices/stoppoisoning.htm
On children's health and the growing obesity problem, see:
www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1476219,00.html The Guardian also has a large number of other articles about school meals and associated issues.