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CHAPTER TWO: SCHOOL CHARACTERISTICS
2.1 This chapter presents key facts about the schools and summarises any recent or planned changes relating to school meals or healthy eating within the school.
Overview of school characteristics
2.2 A total of 8 primary, 8 secondary and 2 special schools (which included both primary and secondary age pupils) were used as case studies in the research. Annex 2 provides further details of criteria used in the selection of schools.
2.3 The primary schools, which were located in eight different local authority areas, ranged in pupil numbers from 67 to 412. The mean national primary school pupil number is 180. On average across Scotland, a little over half (51%) of pupils ate a school meal on School Census day in 2004. In the selected primary schools, this varied between 16% and 86%. Apart from these two extremes, school meal take-up in the remainder of the schools was between 35% - 57%. Just over a quarter (26%) of primary school pupils was entitled to free school meals ( FSM). Entitlement to free school meals in the sample varied from fewer than 5% in a small rural school to 40% in a large city school.
2.4 Eight secondary schools were also selected from each of the 8 local authority areas. Those schools selected had between 544 and 1404 pupils on their school roll. According to the School Census 2004, the national average secondary school size was 799 pupils. On school census day in 2004, between 13% and 69% of secondary pupils in the selected schools ate a school meal. Across all schools in Scotland, the average take-up on this day was just over 40%. Between 5% and 45% of pupils were entitled to a free school meal. The median value within the selected schools was 14%, which was similar to the national average entitlement for secondary school pupils (16%).
2.5 The two special schools differed in the ages of pupils catered for. While one included secondary age pupils, the other was attended by pupils of both secondary and primary age. School meal uptake and entitlement to free school meals was relatively high in both schools.
Summary of any recent or planned changes to school meal provision
2.7 Recent or planned changes to school meals provision were reported in virtually all of the case study schools. As might be expected, the extent and nature of changes varied by school. Another difference between the schools was the extent to which they were actively making changes, or were implementing change introduced by the local authority. Most of the changes were directly related to the implementation of recommendations in Hungry for Success. Broadly, primary schools were ahead of secondary schools in making such changes, which is to be expected given the different timetables set for implementation of the recommendations. The progress in making changes in the two special schools, where implementation should have taken place by December 2004, varied according to their particular circumstances.
2.8 Most of the recent or planned changes related to what pupils eat and the physical environment of the dining area. They include:
- introduction of new menus and recipes
- changes to the type and availability of drinks
- refurbishment and reorganisation of the kitchen and dining areas
2.9 Other planned changes linked to the recommendations included:
- plans to demolish and rebuild schools that will change the physical environment of provision and in the case of one secondary school, it is expected, the up-take of school meals
- more or earlier information on menus
- more active promotion of healthy eating and drinking options and of healthy living more generally
- consultation on aspects of provision such as the physical environment
- staff training
2.10 Staff changes to head cooks or Head Teachers, although not directly arising as a result of Hungry for Success recommendations, have had or are expected to have an effect on implementation. Positive changes could be seen where head cooks or Head Teachers had brought in new ideas for implementation. In one secondary school, for example, the change in head cook delayed implementation due to resulting staff shortages that have taken a while to resolve.
2.11 It should be noted that recent changes reported in one secondary school appeared actually to be working against the implementation of the recommendations. This included reduction in catering staff resources and reduction in the quality of ingredients. There were no planned changes in this school to start the implementation of the recommendations, although the cook and Deputy Head had heard of recent changes suggested by the local authority.
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