Doncaster primary school awarded £5,000 for healthy lunch initiative

The School Food Trust has awarded a Doncaster primary school £5,000 in recognition of its efforts to promote healthy school lunches.

Bentley New Village Primary School received the cheque in a special assembly attended by Civic Mayor for Doncaster, Ros Jones as part of the SFT’s ‘Million Meals School of the Month’ initiative.

Head teacher Lynne Paradine said: ‘We have worked incredibly hard to focus our efforts on improving the health of our pupils through healthy school meals.

“The catering team have shown incredible innovation and more and more, the kitchen staff are ‘coming out of the kitchen’ and into the classroom to make learning about food fun.” 

The school encourages its pupils to grow their own vegetables and has set up popular after school clubs, the Cookery Club and the Garden Gang.

In particular, the school was praised for its work in getting the wider community involved in teaching children about nutrition. Pupils regularly get the opportunity to meet adult role models who owe their successes to a healthy lifestyle.
 
Sarah Stevenson, a 2008 Tae Kwan Do Olympic medal winner and former New Village pupil, recently visited to celebrate with the children and show off her medal and the squad from Doncaster Rovers FC have also visited every classroom in the school to answer pupils’ questions about diet and exercise.
 
Paradine continued: “We hope to continue our efforts to increase the take up of school meals by using the prize money to buy new tables and re-decorate our school canteen to make it more appealing for the children and continue encouraging them to eat healthy school meals.”
 
The SFT set up the School of the Month award to recognise excellence and innovation in the area of school food. It allows all the schools who are signed up to its Month Million Meals campaign the chance to win £5,000 every month.
 
Rob Rees, chair of the School Food Trust said: “Congratulations to Bentley New Village Primary School. They have worked incredibly hard to involve the whole community in improving their school meals and their pupils’ knowledge of food with fantastic results. They thoroughly deserve it.”

Caterer has this week launched the School Meals Matter campaign to gain a commitment from the incoming Government to support the school meals service and continue investment in the wellbeing of the nation’s children.

Sign our petition at www.caterersearch.com/SMM

School Meals Matter Campaign >>

Rob Rees appointed new chair of the School Food Trust >>

School Food Trust welcomes Government food strategy >>

More stories on school dinners on Caterersearch >>


By Janie Stamford

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