English, Maths, Food Education

The important future of teaching Food in schools in England.

When I started secondary school in 2006, ‘Food Technology’ was a mandatory rotation within our Design Technology curriculum, strangely enough. With outdated facilities, a lack of teachers, and an attitude that it was a subject for the less academic students, no value was communicated and students took little interest. The extent of our learning was making flapjacks. The school was not to blame, nor the hardworking staff, but rather a lack of coherent policy and value placed upon an education in a subject that is a basic human need: Food. In this piece, I will explore why there is a desperate need for better Food Education and Food Culture in schools in England, and how it has been, and is still being, undervalued and neglected, to the detriment of generations of children and our planet. I will be looking at what the future of Food Education looks like by speaking with the people behind three projects at the forefront of positive change: Stephanie Slater, Founder of the charity ‘School Food Matters’, George Webber, Deputy Headteacher of ‘Greenside Primary School’, and Lucy Gray, Fundraising Director of the charity ‘GROW’, in order to show how versions of these projects could, and should, exist in every school.

Why Food Education is important

Food plays a vital role within educational spaces both in terms of the curriculum and school meals, especially in a place like the UK, where according to Government figures, in 2020/21 3.9 million children were estimated to be growing up in poverty. Food insecurity (when an individual or household has insufficient or insecure access to food) is a symptom of poverty, and forces families to resort to cheaper, less nutritious food. This was outlined in the ‘School Food Plan’ in 2013: ‘Most convenience food is extremely cheap to produce (being largely made of fat, sugar and dough). Even with a hefty mark-up, it can be sold at prices that the poorest families can afford. Cooking a meal from scratch for the same price isn’t simple. If you don’t know where to find the cheapest ingredients, and how to transform them into something wholesome and tasty, it can feel impossibly daunting. Living off frozen ready-meals and fast food may actually seem cheaper, since the costs are easier to calculate.’ Another report from ‘The Food Foundation’ also evidenced that cost is a key barrier to people buying vegetables: ‘with the wealthiest 20% accessing one portion of vegetables more a day than the poorest 20%, who are also much more likely to not get any vegetables.’ Food insecurity is a significant barrier to eating well.

A good diet positively affects our physical health. It is a naturally pre-emptive action against an increased risk of obesity, cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, amongst many other diet-related health issues. However, the current state of food in England is contributing to a serious health crisis. According to the latest ‘National Child Measurement Programme’ figures from 2020 and 2021, in England 14.4% of children aged between 4 and 5 years old, and 25.5% of children aged 10-11 are living with obesity, which is an increase of 9.9% and 21% from the year before, respectively. Again, this affects children in poverty the most, as the ‘National Food Strategy’ reports: ‘Children living in the poorest areas are four times more likely than children from the richest areas to be severely obese when they arrive at primary school.They are five times more likely to be severely obese when they leave it. It is a peculiarity of the modern food system that obesity sometimes co-exists with hunger. Bad diets are, per calorie, much cheaper than healthy diets.’

In terms of academic performance, studies used in the ‘School Food Plan’ of 2013 show that ‘Hunger affects concentration, and that well-nourished children fare better at school.’ For example, ‘A 2012 study of nearly 1400 6-16 year olds showed that those who had eaten breakfast performed at least twice as well on six measures of cognitive function as those who had not.’ Once again, this affects a disproportionate amount of low-income children given that in England in 2021, there were more than 1.7 million children receiving free school meals, meaning that many arrive at school too hungry to learn well, and so fall behind. Growing, cooking and eating is also an important part of a child's social development and mental wellbeing in school, and has a direct impact on their food preferences and eating behaviour. As well as the joy that stems from these acts and the environments that they take place in, the ‘School Food Plan’ outlines that: ’When children sit down to eat with friends and teachers in a civilised environment, it cements relationships, helps them to develop social skills and reinforces positive behaviour throughout the day.’

Food Education is also essential for the future of our planet; how we produce, cook, eat, and dispose of our food has a huge effect on the environment. The ‘London Food Strategy’ report estimates that ‘Food and drink accounts for almost 10 per cent of London’s total consumption-based Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. This is mainly because of the type of food eaten and the way it is farmed. This also has a big impact on our soils, biodiversity, and water quality.’ Faced with the ever-present impact of climate change, learning to appreciate nature and change the food system for the better has never been more important, and yet a 2014 ‘British Nutrition Foundation’ survey of school children showed that many didn’t understand where food comes from, with 25% of 5-8 year olds thinking that bread comes from animals, and 26% of 5-8 year olds and 22% of 8-11 year olds thinking that cheese comes from plants. This needs to change.

In her 2008 book, ‘Hungry Cities’, author and architect Carolyn Steel hits upon another important value of Food Education: autonomy. “The consequences of not cooking are far more serious now than they were even a generation ago. In our industrialised, urbanised society, cooking is the one chance most of us have of taking some control over what we eat, and all that means. Cooking is not just about what goes on in the kitchen; it is the pivotal point in the food chain: the one that, arguably, affects everything else in it.”

At this point it is important to say that better Food Education in schools is only part of the solution to the food poverty crisis that is taking place. It was recently argued by Conservative MP Lee Anderson that food banks were “largely unnecessary because the main cause of food poverty is a lack of cooking and budgetary skills.” This immediately places the blame back onto families who are struggling to stay warm and fed through a genuine cost of living crisis, rather than onto the Government. As Jack Monroe, the anti-poverty campaigner and budget cooking expert, said perfectly on Twitter: “You can’t cook meals from scratch with nothing. You can’t buy cheap food with nothing. The issue is not ‘skills’, it’s 12 years of Conservative cuts to social support. The square root of fuck all is ALWAYS going to be fuck all, no matter how creatively you’re told to dice it.” However, it’s clear that these moments around food in school are an opportunity to support both nourishment and learning. The key is for the Department of Education to prioritise and value Food and Food Education at school, so we can build a system that supports everyone, no matter their circumstances.

What does Food Education in England look like?

The nature of Food Education in England has meandered from a pastime for women of the upper classes of society to learn how to look after a household, to the Education Act of 1870 which stated that all girls should learn domestic skills such as sewing and cooking, to ‘Home Economics’ for both sexes, before the National Curriculum adapted the title to the aforementioned ‘Food Technology’ in 1989 and positioned it within the Design Technology remit. In part, it was an attempt to de-gender the subject by appealing to the technology side which was, at the time, predominantly male, but the forced positioning as a ‘technology’ felt very disconnected from the real value of Food Education. For example, the 2007 Design and Technology curriculum featured language such as ‘Children at key stage 2 are expected to design and make assignments using a range of materials, including electrical and mechanical components, food, mouldable materials, stiff and flexible sheet materials, and textiles.’ The terminology didn’t really apply to cooking, and so rendered the curriculum unimportant, vague, and uninspiring both for the students and teachers.

It wasn’t before 2013, following the publication of the ‘School Food Plan’, written by Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent, that alongside agreeing to universal infant free-school meals and mandatory school food standards, the British government made cooking lessons a compulsory part of the National Curriculum for all children up to the age of fourteen. In the 2014 National Curriculum, under the title of ‘Cooking and Nutrition’, the vernacular around the subject became more appropriate and more human, stating that ‘As part of their work with food, pupils should be taught how to cook and apply the principles of nutrition and healthy eating. Instilling a love of cooking in pupils will also open a door to one of the great expressions of human creativity. Learning how to cook is a crucial life skill that enables pupils to feed themselves and others affordably and well, now and in later life.’ In comparison to the language of the ‘Food Technology’ curriculum, this was an important step in taking back control over how children were taught about food.

Policy and advocacy play a big role in making these changes. One of the people that I spoke to for this piece, Stephanie Slater, Founder of the charity ‘School Food Matters’, sat on the expert panel for the ‘School Food Plan’, and helped to implement the changes. ‘School Food Matters’ was founded in 2007 as a grassroots campaign to fix school dinners in the London Borough of Richmond after Stephanie saw how low the standard of school food was at her children’s school. But in recognising the need in many other schools, the charity grew and now exists to teach all children about food and to improve their access to healthy, sustainable food during their time at school. In our conversation, Stephanie shared her belief that Food Education is important because “the joy of food and the pleasure of connecting with food is fundamental, and we know that some children don’t get the opportunity or access to the creation and sharing of food, just because of their circumstances. We also need to ensure that every child understands the impact of the food they eat on their health and the environment, and has the food skills to live a healthy life. We’ve seen the impact of health inequalities over the years and know that unhealthy weight follows low income, so we need to do everything we can in the 190 days that children are in school to try and influence their relationship with food.” Although she thinks that the ‘Cooking and Nutrition’ curriculum as it stands is very meaningful and engaging, Stephanie explained why the future Food Education must have even more of an impact: “Food is a great pathway into any number of curriculum subjects. So to me, it’s a complete no-brainer to use food as a vehicle for having bigger conversations. It’s a bigger conversation about inequality, it’s a bigger conversation about climate, it’s a bigger conversation about health. My vision is for a subject called Food Education, in the same way that we have Physical Education and Religious Education. There is enough content there from Reception to A Level, starting off with taste and texture and ending up in GeoPolitics. We want Food Education to have the same focus as English and Maths.”

To further support this learning ethos, ‘School Food Matters’ develops, delivers and supports fully-funded Food Education programmes for children, young people and teachers. The team spend a lot of time listening to the children, teachers and families, to influence their advocacy and tailor the programmes to the schools.“We’ve got two Headteachers on our board and we will always test-run the programmes with them.” Stephanie further elucidates, “It’s all about working really closely with the school, listening to teachers, and listening to leadership teams, who are very time-poor, and asking them what they believe will add value and enrich their curriculum, and what they will be able to deliver.” One conversation with a Headteacher that specifically sticks in Stephanie’s mind is when he admitted that children in his school couldn’t identify an onion. This spurred her on to start a program called ‘Know Your Onions’, where secondary school students learn to plant fruit and vegetables from seed in their school gardens, which they then use in joint cooking masterclasses and sell at their local street market. Stephanie explains the importance of teaching children that food comes from the earth and not the supermarket: “Not only is growing a joyful thing to learn and a creative skill to develop, but we also need young people to be environmental stewards don’t we? With growing food, you learn about the environment, and you shut down that disconnect between the food on your plate and where it comes from.”

‘School Food Matters’ also often works together with bigger partners to improve the reach of the programmes. For example, ten years ago the Chief Executive of Borough Market at the time was very aware that as a high-end food market mainly for tourists and foodies in the middle of a very deprived area of Southwark, they weren’t serving their local community. So they contacted ‘School Food Matters’ to find a way to make an amazing resource like the market more accessible for children and families from the local area. The charity devised the idea for a ‘Young Marketeers’ programme at Borough Market which brings together children from local primary schools to grow, harvest, and cook fresh fruit and vegetables, before selling their produce at the market. The programme is now running for the tenth year in a row and has been proven to stimulate an interest in food and a love of the natural world within the students. But ultimately, it all comes back to policy, as Stephanie Slater outlines: “We want to change policy because although we can do fabulous things like work with 500 schools every year, there are 28,000 in England, so we’re only scratching the surface. But what we can do is go into schools, listen to children, teachers, families and gather evidence and case studies that we can take to the Government. It’s not unusual to go in and meet civil servants who haven’t stepped inside a school, had a school dinner, or sat in on a food lesson. So, we can give them really rich and authentic material to help them make the policy decisions.”

Government Policy

Unfortunately, despite the Government decree in 2013, and the endless benefits, only 26% of schools are actually teaching Food Education, and so charities like ‘School Food Matters’ who engage and support schools in teaching it, are becoming increasingly important. There are many reasons for this, but ultimately it comes down to the fact that Food Education in schools is still not properly supported or monitored, and therefore it is not valued. The 2021 ‘National Food Strategy’ highlights that ‘Many secondary schools report that gaps in funding for materials, support staff and a lack of specialist teaching staff prevent them meeting the requirements of the curriculum.’ Food Education is also not reviewed in the same way as other subjects on the curriculum, and School Food Standards are not properly monitored either, which means that many schools do not provide adequate school meals for their students. As Stephanie emphasises: “Food Education is falling through the cracks because no-one is looking. So when Ofsted go to look at a school, they aren’t looking into the Food room. Until they do a curriculum review particularly in Design Technology where food sits, bizarrely, schools will be focussing elsewhere. In 2006, following Jamie Oliver’s ‘School Dinners’ campaign, the Government set up a ‘School Food Trust’, which did fantastic work in gathering lots of research and data from authorities across England. It was called the ‘National Indicator 52’ and it was really important because it showed us where the problems were. If you don’t know how it’s broken, you can’t fix it.” The ‘National Food Strategy’ also calls for ‘Ofsted to assess the quality of food and nutrition lessons with the same rigour as they do English or Maths lessons, to ensure that all schools are taking the subject as seriously as they should.’ The problem has been made worse by the fact that there is currently no A Level qualification for Food Education, which means that it cannot be pursued in school beyond 16 years old. It is the only subject on the curriculum without one, which further devalues the subject. The reinstatement of the A Level is something that ‘The National Food Strategy’ is striving for because ‘Students who might have continued into higher education and careers in the food sector – including teaching food in schools – have lost a vital route to training, which has inevitably led to a reduction in status, funding and the availability of good food teachers.’

In addition to the shortfall of support and monitoring, the lack of good Food Education in schools is often also because the subject is taught in silo. Many of the schools that succeed in teaching their students about food offer a more holistic education - something that is called the ‘Whole School Approach’ - where the learning covers all aspects of growing, cooking, and eating, and doesn’t just sit in one subject, but is explored across the curriculum and integrated within all aspects of school life. This includes practices such as using food as a means of teaching other curriculum subjects like Maths, Science and Geography, using the school kitchen and, if available, garden as integrated learning spaces, valuing lunch as an important part of the school day rather than a rush, asking students to help the kitchen team to grow, prepare, and cook the food for lunch, and making sure that all students and staff eat together in a comfortable and inspiring dining environment. This ‘Whole School Approach’ is spreading, with impressive initiatives and case studies proving that this education pathway is completely feasible in most schools, both in terms of funding and actions. It’s important to look at the successes of those doing it, and how this can be applied across the board.

Successful examples of the ‘Whole School Approach’

‘Greenside Primary School’ in Shepherd’s Bush, London, is one example of an educational space which implements the ‘Whole School Approach’. The school has an aim of making sure that students are ‘World Ready and Test Ready through the Arts’ with an experiential learning model built on strong educational and pedagogical research. Led by George Webber, ‘Greenside’ have been running a ‘Food Experience’ program across the school for the past five years, which aims to bring food and nature to the centre of the curriculum, and so combines learning about food and food production with other subjects and the wider school operations. In our conversation George explains how it works: “At ‘Greenside’ we found that by bringing both food and nature into the heart of our school philosophy we are able to give them the focus they deserve. Learning about the food and the natural world is more than a single subject specific lesson a week, or an opt in extra curricular offering - it is integrated into everything.” In terms of the curriculum, ‘Greenside' have, for example, launched a project which sits across the ‘STEAM’ subjects of Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts, and Mathematics, where students from all years in the school are working together to regenerate the soil in the school garden so that they can grow the most nutritional and delicious produce.“Through this project all of our students will develop their scientific knowledge and deepen their understanding of factors affecting our environment, as well as being hands on with growing the veg in our garden.” George continues, “Ultimately it comes down to the fact that it is children who will steward this planet into the future and it is our responsibility in schools to ensure that they are equipped with the skills and knowledge to do that - rather than leaving it to them to discover as adults when, inevitably, it will be too late.”

Over the past year, ‘Greenside’ have also created a micro-bakery at the school, as part of their ‘Breaducation’ programme, which seeks to educate the school community on the importance of bread. The program invites every student, from Nursery to Year Six, and staff members to take part in the bread-making process, which as George outlines, has had an incredible impact both for the students and the wider community: “We planted a regenerative wheat ‘field’ in the heart of urban London, we use regenerative ‘Wildfarmed’ flour in our bread, and we bake daily in our bread oven. All of our students have learnt how it is possible to produce food that has been grown in a way that is better for us and the planet - without pesticides, chemicals, and most importantly without harming the soil, through regenerative agriculture.This message has reached out beyond the school gate as we have weekly bread sales where we share what we bake with our local community.”

As part of the ‘Whole School Approach’, the school kitchen and dining room also present opportunities to develop initiatives as part of the experiential learning model. From picking produce in the school garden and buying the remaining ingredients at the local market, to creating the menu and cooking the food, students are brought in every day to help the kitchen team prepare a fresh lunch for the whole school. As George describes: “We build the lunch experience into the wider ‘Greenside’ context of growing and harvesting fresh food, and understanding the real value of eating healthily as part of a lifestyle choice. It is always wonderful to see our students taking freshly picked carrots to the Chef and watching their delight when their vegetables appear as part of the cooked lunch!” Equally important is the fact that they all eat the same thing together. No packed lunches are allowed at ‘Greenside’, which is something that improves both the relationships across the school body and the nutritional quality of the meals, as with a higher uptake there is a bigger budget. George shares an insight into a similarity with her own education: “While what we are doing feels a long way from my home-economics classes at school, we did all eat together at the table, and that is something that has stuck with me since then. Being able to sit together and share a meal is as important as the cooking.” The ‘Food Experience’ program is something that George strongly believes should be the way forward in terms of the future of Food Education in all schools: “In essence none of this is new learning, what it comes down to is new thinking. To make a small change you have to act differently, to make a big change you have to think differently. Learning about food and nature should be an important part of every child’s journey through the education system. We all have to eat and live on this planet, so we carry the collective responsibility to ensure that healthy attitudes to both these things are instilled from a young age. By instilling normalised and positive attitudes around food, we are extending the knowledge beyond our context as our students move into the wider community.”

‘GROW’ is another exciting example of a project that is actively shaping a healthy Food Culture within education. As a charity, ‘GROW’ works to deliver bespoke and funded programmes in sustainable food growing, farming, and outdoor learning, both within schools and wider communities, with the vision that food justice and a sustainable way of life should be available to all. The charity is partnered with ‘The Totteridge Academy’ in Barnet, North London, and has built an agroecological farm and outdoor learning hub adjacent to the school, with the idea, as Lucy Gray, Fundraising Director of ‘GROW’, describes: “of creating a model for how schools and farms can work together to enhance learning and wellbeing, reach sustainability goals, and strengthen community.” The farm is where they deliver all of their educational programmes and activities, predominantly for students from ‘The Totteridge Academy’, but also for other local children and young people who experience barriers to learning, healthy living, and employment. ‘GROW’ wants to show the next generation what the future of farming can look like, and offers participants the skills, knowledge, and confidence to make positive choices and changes in their lives and in the world around them. They achieve this through their work in schools, their outreach and development work, and their community work.

The charity works intrinsically with ‘The Totteridge Academy’ to deliver the ‘Whole School Approach’. In terms of the curriculum, ‘GROW’ has developed secondary school packages to link a variety of subjects with the outdoors and nature, because as Lucy explains: “We believe that all subjects can be part-taught outside - in our case on a farm - and we know and understand the benefits of time spent outdoors, even if it is just to take a class outside for half an hour. But we have to make it as easy as possible for the teachers because otherwise it’s not supported or encouraged.” The key is to work with the teachers to facilitate the farm as a learning space across the curriculum and tailor the lesson content so that students are able to access curriculum-based learning experiences that are located in or use nature to inspire and challenge them. From creative writing in Literacy, to composting in Science, and seasonality in Food Technology, students are brought to the farm to learn in an outside environment in order to frame their place in the world and to understand and appreciate the natural environment more.

On the farm, the students also work alongside volunteers to grow and harvest vegetables, fruit, herbs, and flowers by hand, which are sold to the local community and businesses, but are most importantly used in the school canteen. Through a collaboration with another charity, ‘Chefs In Schools’, ‘GROW’ provides the canteen with regular, fresh produce that goes straight into the students’ lunches. “We believe that every child in the UK should have access to healthy nutritious food at lunch time and we believe that regenerative farms partnering with schools is the way to do this.” Lucy continues: “These are very simple ideas - it’s never going to be that ‘GROW’ supplies everything to the kitchen, but what is feasible is that we can supply 20% and even that is huge. It’s so exciting that we’re able to say to kids at lunchtime that part of their food is grown on the farm, and they’re shocked - which shows that there’s still such a disconnect. It’s important that we lose this idea of school meals as a money-making exercise and treat them as a way to support young peoples’ wellbeing, happiness and knowledge. Even if it’s getting asparagus from the local farm down the road on the menu twice a year and explaining to the kids that it comes from within ten miles - it starts an important conversation.” As if there was any doubt that this way of learning supported the general wellbeing of the school, ‘GROW’ make sure to do entry and exit interviews with each of the participants of the program and so has solid data to back up this approach to learning. For example, Lucy shares that 80% of ‘GROW’ participants reported that since taking part they feel more knowledgeable, more confident, better able to control their emotions, and now understand that eating healthy foods can now have a positive impact on their mental health. The team find that in particular, students who have been referred by their year lead because they are struggling in school, report feeling that they are more positive, that they’re concentrating better in class, and have a renewed interest in school.

Beyond the school, as part of their outreach and development work and their engagement with the wider community, ‘GROW’ run a series of accessible programmes such as their ‘Nature Discovery Days’ on the farm for school groups across London to learn about sustainable food growing and outdoor learning, and an ‘AQA Mushroom Cultivation’ project for young people at risk of ‘NEET’ (not in education, employment or training). They also offer a subsidised seasonal vegetable box scheme for fifty local families. Most recently, ‘GROW’ has started a new project called ‘Grow, Cook, Share’, which engages with local families who have been identified by the ‘Barnet 0-19 Early Years Support Hub’ as being on the ‘Universal Plus’ scheme or ‘Free School Meals’, don’t have access to green space, and/or need help in terms of building a positive family dynamic. Each family is given a dedicated raised growing bed for six months as an opportunity for them to work together to grow, cook, and eat their own produce. They will learn everything on the growing side from planting seeds to composting and soil health, alongside being given nutrition and cooking sessions, and having the space to cook, share and eat their food together on the farm. Participants are able to visit the farm anytime they like, which is important both in terms of keeping the crops alive, but also to encourage the families to spend time together in the outdoor environment. Lucy emphasises the significance of the program in making sure that what the students learn in school is passed onto the home environment. “You never really know what happens past the front door in terms of how they’re able to communicate what they’ve done at ‘GROW’ or how much of an influence they have at home or with their parents in terms of food, healthy eating, or growing in general. It’s really nice to see adults and children bonding over growing and learning together. Hopefully the experience will inspire them to continue this lifestyle.”

Like ‘School Food Matters’, an important element of what ‘GROW’ does is making sure that their model is sustainable, scaleable, and available to be taken on by anyone. Lucy shares the value of having key stakeholders within the system to be able to run projects like ‘GROW’: “We’ve got a really supportive headteacher and an amazing relationship with ‘The Totteridge Academy and it’s shown us that the change has to start from within. They have to be willing to take part, because schools are constantly over-worked and have to achieve so much, especially in terms of hitting grade goals and now there’s an extra agenda for schools to be more sustainable and include more work on climate change within the curriculum, which is great, but it means that they need more support from entities like ‘GROW’.” Working with ‘The Totteridge Academy’ in this way has allowed ‘GROW’ to develop a perfect case study for how this can be applied elsewhere, and the team now consult schools who are interested in setting up growing projects. “The future of Food Education for us is about reaching the wider community by empowering teachers and outdoor facilitators to have the confidence to start projects following the ‘GROW’ programme within their own communities. We can’t be everywhere, so through our teacher training packages we can share our ethos, our lesson plans, how we frame why learning about agroecology is so important, and show how the model can be applied even in a small space. We even give advice about finding funding that will allow them to do this, because currently, this way of learning isn’t something that is being taken on by the Department of Education and so isn’t being given the time, space or money to be developed properly within schools. So, it falls to smaller groups like us.”

Conclusion

The idea of Food Education being valued as highly as Maths or English might seem like a pipe-dream, but projects like ‘School Food Matters’, ‘Greenside Primary School’ and ‘GROW’ show that there is a vital need for our educational spaces to focus on a more holistic understanding of food and nature. We have an opportunity to help fuel and shape the health and wellbeing of future generations by equipping them with the knowledge and skills to grow, cook, and eat real food. At the moment this goal is still reliant on independent charities, organisations, and school bodies who are willing to try something new and lead the way. The work of ‘School Food Matters’, ‘Greenside Primary School’ and ‘GROW’, in addition to many other projects and fact-based research such as ‘The National Food Strategy’, prove that it is practically possible for versions of these projects to exist in every school. I say versions, because it is important that each school has the flexibility to make it fit into their everyday, in order to make it a ‘Whole School Approach’.

But to be able to make a more transformational, widespread, and long-lasting difference, this ‘future’ of Food Education needs to be applied across all schools, with practices, coherent policies, and a monitoring system fully supported by our Department of Education. It is critical that we convince the Government to recognise both the short-term and the long-term strategic impact of integrating these models into schools, and to change the curriculum to place value on this way of learning. It’s important to note that the ‘The National Food Strategy’, an independent report commissioned by the Government which examines the British food system, was written by Henry Dimbleby and published in 2021. It is the first strategy since ‘Dig For Victory’ in the Second World War and so covers a vital amount of information - from food waste to climate, to School Food and Food Education, and everything else in between. However, over a year later (June 2022), the Government have only just published their ‘White Paper’ response, and sadly it has ignored many of the key recommendations and very actionable suggestions from ‘The National Food Strategy’. ‘School Food Matters’ have covered the response extensively on the ‘News & Views’ section of their website, which provides ample examples of how important it is that we hold the Government accountable and urge them to reconsider their approach.

In making these changes now, we can try to make a sustainable transformation of the food system from the ground up and make sure that good food is accessible to all. As the ‘School Food Plan’ suggests, ‘This will have a snowball effect: a generation of confident cooks will pass on those skills to their own children, enhancing England’s slowly improving food culture.’ Only then will we see benefits like those mentioned at the start of this piece: better health, improved academic performance, a healthier planet, and most importantly, for these benefits to help everyone, no matter their circumstances.

This piece was researched and written by Cecilia McCormick from April - June 2022, with thanks to Stephanie Slater and Charlotte Borger of School Food Matters, Lucy Gray of GROW, and George Webber of Greenside Primary School, for their time, knowledge, and passion for an incredibly important topic. All content is subject to copyright and may not be reproduced in any form without express written consent of the author and participating interviewees.

Photo credits:

1) School Food Matters: Sowing seeds (Leonard Stanley school Stroud), Young Marketeers programme

2) School Food Matters: Schoolchildren selling their produce on the Schools to Market programme

3) School Food Matters: Cashes Green (Stroud) schoolchildren growing veg on Young Marketeers programme

4) School Food Matters: Princess Frederica school apiary visit - part of the Honeybee Programme

5) School Food Matters: Cooking masterclass (St Ignatius College Enfield) on the Know Your Onions programme

6 - 13) Greenside Primary School

14-19) GROW