Healthy living: new menus have proved popular
Spending on school meals in Greenwich is set to go up after councillors increased investment in children’s health with a £600,000 cash boost.
Resources allocated for school meals will rise by more than £600,000 after a new Council Budget was agreed on 22 February.
How the cash will make a difference
The extra money will go towards increasing the subsidy for each meal for nursery, primary and special schools by 23p. This follows a rise of 13p per meal in 2005/6.
The additional money will enable the Council to increase the amount spent on ingredients – building on improvements which began in 2004/5 when menus were switched, with help from Jamie Oliver, to solely using fresh ingredients.
This will allow Greenwich to meet the Government’s targets to spend at least 50p on ingredients per meal for primary schools and 60p for secondary by September 2006.
Find out more about Jamie's School Dinners here
What else will the money provide?
The additional investment will also cover extra staffing hours where these are needed, additional staff training, as well as transport and other overheads.
The level of support for secondary school meals will be considered by the Schools Forum later this month.
Menus 'extremely popular'
Council leader Chris Roberts said: "The healthier school meal menus have proved extremely popular and are making a very real contribution to the improved health of our young people. A healthy diet plays such an enormous part in children’s healthy development and this new investment shows our determination to build on what’s been achieved.
"A lot of schools have used school meals as a springboard to launch a wide range of health projects such as fitness campaigns, vegetable gardens and lessons on nutrition.
"The fact that Greenwich will be one of the host boroughs for the London Olympics in 2012 is giving an extra boost to our schools and the work they are doing to encourage children towards a healthier lifestyle."