School in Focus - celebrating success in schools

St Aidans High School

When deputy-head Steve Hatcher and his colleagues began to notice serious shortfalls in the quality of contract catering at St Aidan's Church of England High School in Harrogate they decided to look around for a completely new way of providing dinners for the pupils.

But the initial search for an in-house effective healthy eating strategy — long before school canteen staff had ever heard of Jamie Oliver or considered serving organic food as standard — proved difficult.

As Steve explains: "We set up a working party in 1999 to find a new catering system, but we knew that bringing in new contractors would only be a surface change — it would not provide a substantial improvement in the quality of the final product being served to children.

"Now there are many schools following healthy eating policies, and there is backing at a national level from government and various organisations. Back then, however, it was very difficult — we couldn't find schools to visit; there were no models we could use as the basis for what we wanted to achieve."

A new approach

So the school leadership team pioneered a new approach — agreeing to spend "serious money" (around three times the salary of a school cook) on recruiting a talented chef from the catering industry to take charge of school food policy, and a further £25,000 on consumables — replacing "prison trays" with quality trays and crockery to "lift the eating environment".

After two months of planning over the summer holidays, Steve and the new Catering Manager, Trevor Whitehead, drafted a new catering policy aimed at ensuring healthy, appetising meals. The key measure was to ensure that all food is prepared daily from fresh, locally sourced produce, with vegetables a part of the main meal, while vending machines were removed. Water and fresh juices are the only drinks available on three days of every week.

A series of initiatives have helped enhance and expand the programme since its inception: the introduction of cashless swipe cards means that pupils can be monitored individually and parents can be kept informed of their children's choices.

The catering manager has also introduced a breakfast club and after-school snack service and provides healthy snacks during breaks. The catering team also provide a takeaway meal service for the staff.

The school have also appointed a Senior Paediatric Dietician to work with the children. Her role here is nutrition standards, education, and as a contact for parents with concerns over their children's diet. Also, it has developed an organic vegetable garden to help supply the kitchens and a commercial standard glasshouse producing salad crops.

The school also spent £500,000 (from a variety of sources including a £250,000 loan from the LA) to refurbish the dilapidated kitchens and build a new restaurant — resulting in a school dining facility that would stand up to comparison with professional, profit-making establishments.

Quality food without charging a premium

St Aidans has been able to provide quality food and service without charging a premium and, remarkably, effective management has meant that the project has become self-financing while maintaining country free-school-meal prices.

Steve says: "This success depends entirely on our wonderful catering manager, who has built a superb team around him. And we really do work as a team — senior management and catering and teachers together — so there are none of the tensions you often find in schools around lunchtimes. It is always a pleasant experience for us."

Any visitor to the school can see why: in short, children eat excellent food in a nice environment.

"Ask any of the 120 teachers and they will say it's had a great effect on creating happier pupils, more willing learners," says Steve. He adds: "The children appreciate the quality and variety of food that is provided. They are calmer and more alert in their lessons, and as a result they have a greater pride in their achievements and in the care of their school environment."

Financial success

The results of this approach, and of the great energy and enthusiasm that has gone into transforming the quality of food at St Aidans, are clear to see in the statistics: more than 90 per cent of the 1,700 children and 200 staff at St Aidan's eat meals prepared by the catering staff, including the 800 students in Years 11, 12 and 13 who have permission to leave the school site at lunchtime (they now choose to stay on site). Under the catering contractors, just 300 children were regularly opting for school dinners. This also translates into a financial success: takings have increased under the new regime — from around £400 under contract catering in 2000 to over £3,000 per day today.

Stephen says: "The pupils are kept informed of these developments. They know what we are doing and, over the last three years, have seen the progress that has been made. As a result, I believe that they feel a part of the process and they support the changes and want to be involved."