This guest blog comes from Jeremy Boardman, head of schools’ support at The Children’s Food Trust
What is it about headteachers who get stuck in on school food?
Do they all share certain character traits? Are they ‘foodies’ at home? Do they simply have more time on their hands than other heads?
A: Nope, not necessarily, and definitely not. But all of the heads I’ve met who are doing a sterling job on food do share one thing in common: they want to get what they’re paying for. More precisely, they want the parents at their school – and, so, the kids - to get what they’re paying for: great food and a great experience.
One head I’ve worked with started out with the view that the catering service at her school really wasn’t her responsibility. She was paying – and paying well – for an external provider to deliver it, and expected them to get on with the job. Fair enough. But, as so many of us know to our peril when we hire someone to tile the bathroom or build a conservatory or whatever, the fact is that you should never just expect. The more interest you take, the better the result is likely to be.
For that head, it was seeing school food through parents’ eyes which made the difference. I asked parents for their views on what was working well, what could be better and what wasn’t working at all. The results were pretty surprising – and that headteacher hasn’t looked back since.
It doesn’t mean that school food became something she was exclusively responsible for. She isn’t running the catering service herself – far from it. She’s still paying for a professional provider to run her service. She simply made sure that she was listening to all of the players involved – parents, children, the catering team, the governors, the business manager – on how things were going. When there’s a problem, she doesn’t wade in to fix it herself – she delegates to the players involved and gets them to take action.
She’s the conductor of the orchestra, not the first violin – delegating, watching and monitoring carefully, and making sure all of the relationships and connections are working well.
The result? Take up has rocketed. Her catering team are on board, kids are getting a much better experience, and everyone feels like they can share their views.
Three things you can do:
Run a survey of parents on school food at least once a year
Eat in the canteen at least once a week, and stop by the kitchen for a natter whenever you can
Get pupils to do some of the monitoring for you – set up a School Nutrition Action Group and they’ll be your eyes and ears