Durham Free School Meal Pilot, 2009 - 2011 Alison Young, Children and Adults Services (Education) Introduction Durham as a beautiful, university city but real contrast between the more affluent city and towns of Durham and the small x mining communities where there remain high levels of deprivation. Schools, caterers and the local authority have always worked hard to try and provide a high quality school meals service – but it was only when Taylor Shaw took over the contract did we really seriously consider applying to become part of the pilot.

To make a success of the pilot we couldn’t simply see school meals as (and as one head teacher described it in the short film clip you have just seen) ‘separate to learning’ and therefore embarked on a journey which was to link school meals to wider learning opportunities. Photo was taken in the first year of the pilot at an event when we invited all the school that had 100% uptake to come together to celebrate their achievements. Steve Cram was very happy to support our efforts of linking good nutritious school food to improved performance – whether this was on the sports field or in the classroom. We took every opportunity to promote school meals through links in the curriculum for example growing activities to talking about nutrition and health as part of PE. The pilot in Durham would not have been a success if we didn’t have the full support of the head teachers, Taylor Shaw and the wider school community. Jo has provided you with some of the key outcomes DURHAM KS 1 and 2 RESULT – TRENDS OVER LAST 3 YEARS – NEED TO ADD….. I want to provide some context to the evaluation outcomes through a couple of examples from schools.

Kieran Kierans’ school is in a small x mining village with quite high deprivation. As a fairly new head teacher Kieran wanted to improve the communication and dialogue between parent, pupils and the wider school community – so he invited everyone to be part of a school working group that looked a the issues surrounding the pilot including: how to cope with increased numbers of children taking a meal, how to make sure pupils received the meal of their choice, what to do about poor quality packed lunches etc…. Outcome of this is that ALL parents and children decided to take the school lunch option – so 100% uptake - all children were accessing a nutritious hot meal. Kieran would tell you himself that this had a massive impact on the children’s attention, concentration and behaviour. For one pupil and her family in particular, this was a huge learning journey as this child had an aversion to solid food, and was really at the stage of early weaning (even though she was 7). By the school, the cooks from Taylor Shaw and the pupil and parents working together this child is now eating a full traditional meal with all the vegetable and trimmings and is happy to try new foods and be more experimental. She is doing much better in school, and has a real thirst for learning now that she is not worrying about what will happen at lunch times. There is a real sense of community in this school – enhanced by the FSM pilot, where everyone worked together to get the right outcomes. Judith – from a school in similar circumstances and had equal success in supporting the progress of some pupils learning simply through improved communication with parents. A small cohort of parents who really were struggling financially wouldn’t come past the school gates because they knew a conversation would have to be had about their growing debts for paying for school meals. Once the financial side was no longer a barrier - parents started to come into yard and school and resulted in meaningful conversations taking place about a whole range of issues from their child’s learning, progress, behaviour and school life in general. Don’t forget some of these parents had not stepped foot in school for 3 or 4 years. How can you improve children’s learning if you can’t have a meaningful conversation with their parents? All other attempts (and there were many) at engaging these parents were not as successful as taking away the payment barrier. Because of the logistics of feeding so many children, schools and head teachers HAD to take an active interest in the lunch time period. A number of our schools used lunchtime as an opportunity to improve children’s personal and social skills, and adapted the curriculum accordingly. Another school reported that having to teach some children how to use a knife and fork, meant that they became much better skilled in other areas such as cutting, writing and other fine motor activities. Certainly the evaluation highlights that the biggest improvement in pupil attainment was for those children that came poorer socio economic back grounds. One school altered their timetable for the early years pupils and included lunch as part of the Personal, Social Development curriculum. They saw such improved communication in the foundation stage pupils simply by children having the opportunity to communicate in a different way that they have kept the changes even after the end of the pilot. Improved speaking and listening was highlighted by many of our schools as a clear outcome of being involved in the pilot. This is backed up in the evaluation report along with significant improvement in attainment in maths. Janine and other schools The evaluation report highlights the ‘levelling effect’ perceived by school staff. This was the opinion of many of our schools. It brought a sense of collective purpose, children (particularly older ones) that may have felt stigmatised by the fact that they were taking free school meals were suddenly equal to everyone else. Gone was the competition to have the best lunch box with Barbie or some similar popular figure. Universal free school meals meant that almost 90% of our primary aged children were generally eating a hot, nutritionally balanced meal. What can be more levelling than that?

Durham LA / National – KS2 Expected progress 3 year trend (mean average) Jo has provided you with some of the key outcomes from pilot – NEED TO CONSIDER DURHAM KS 1 and 2 RESULT – TRENDS OVER LAST 3 YEARS – NEED TO ADD….. 4

The evaluation report suggests (although is not conclusive) that the universal FSM pilot contributed to the reduction of education inequalities. MOVING FORWARD GOOD NUTRITION HAS TO BE A KEY COMPONENT OF ANY STRATEGY TO ADDRESS THIS ISSUE We know when we started out in Durham that for us this was not simply about trying to improve education attainment, but improve children and families diets, promote the high quality of school meals provided by Taylor Shaw and convince families that school meals are the better option. From being actively involved with the 240 schools in Durham I know that nearly everyone of the schools has their own success story. Some of these range from families now sitting at the table and eating together, families talking about food, pupils being more willing to try new foods, improved packed lunches for those children going back on to them. Parents now working in school as lunch time supervisors so that they can afford to pay for school lunches, cooks taking a greater part in school life. There are so many positive outcomes IN ADDITION TO the improved attainment of pupils. I believe the universal success of the pilot was the combination of improved nutrition, emphasis on food and lunchtime being integral to learning, the ‘levelling effect’ of everyone being equal and the collective view that we were all in this together. What is the future for Durham: Continue to promote the high quality school meals service provided by Taylor Shaw Encourage families eligible for FSM to register but more importantly for these children to EAT a school meal Build on parent perceptions that a school meal is better for their child’s health than a packed lunch Continue to encourage children to try new foods both in school and at home. THANK YOU FOR LISTENING