The school catering industry v much want to steer schools away from vouchers, they spent considerable time and effort meeting and lobbying @vickyford and @educationgovuk on this
Anyone looking at last Friday DfE guidance might conclude the lobbyists were quite successful
The problem is that many of the big backers of @LACA_UK are the self same big multinational caterers who are putting out the worst examples
It’s been reported that the widely shared @RoadsideMum meal was from Chartwells
This would be the same Chartwells who employ @SforsterLaca
Who is A Business Development Director at Chartwells as well as National Chair of Laca
The same caterers who received so much criticism in the first lockdown
Last time they blamed local chefs and managers, excuses we should expect to see again
They don’t ever list their costs, or explain how they have the gall to charge £15
Instead they try to greenwash themselves
I’m sure @MarcusRashford will be hugely disappointed to hear that @Chartwells_UK are one of the companies on his Child Food Poverty Taskforce
As someone who is really supportive of good school catering, I’m disgusted that people make a conscious decision to give these parcels to the most vulnerable families
Management understand what’s possible in the budget and shouldn’t shirk responsibility
Schools need to be proactive on this, like thebschool local to me who sent the following after rejecting their food parcels
Schools should take @educationgovuk guidance with a pinch of salt
Unless the caterers are providing exceptional quality parcels, everyone should give serious consideration to giving parents vouchers
Just to highlight the fact that it can be done
That school caterers can put out a really helpful pack
Anyone remember Gavin Williamson talking about assessed grades at A level, when he claimed “Some schools... have literally put every child in as either an A, an A* or a B”
Well I did an FOI to OFQUAL
Obviously they won't name the schools involved, but we now know that there were 119 centres entering CAGs of only grade B or above
93 of these has 5 or fewer entries
12 6-10 entries
and only 14 had more than 10 entries
Only 9 of these schools were Comprehensive
1 Sixth form and 7 FE colleges
18 City academies
35 Independent schools
42 "other" including private candidates
It’s clear that there wasn’t the political will to question the actions of a very well connected school leader like Mike Dwan
The @educationgovuk ignored the warning signs IMO because he was fully on board with the free school/academisation project so close to ministers hearts
Dwan is central to a group of “educationalists”with extensive links to numerous failed free school projects in the North West
From Bolton Wanders free school, to Manchester Creative to Bright Tribe, a small cabal, milked the system whilst being awarded honours by their friends
It’s great to see the issue of the 5 week wait for Universal Credit being so well covered in the report, but I worry it doesn’t mention that children miss out on FSM during that 5 week wait
We should be looking to start feeding children at the point a parent puts a UC claim in
One of the issues that needs to be addressed is around pupil premium
Currently every FSM pupil if eligible for at least 5 years of PP, currently £1200 pa (ish)
If you suddenly increase the number of FSM pupils by 1.5 million, that has a knock on cost of £10billion
Now we have the detailed guidance for School openings in September, I can’t help notice it’s a bit lite on the catering and FSM aspects other than the expectation everything will be back to normal
Which is an issue because it won’t
Menus may well have to change as food temperatures need maintaining throughout the sitting, self service is no longer an option so we will say goodbye salad bars and pick and go
On the positive side the lunchtime bubble is already used in schools
We know about cleaning down between each sitting, washing the benches, tables & chairs, clean cutlery & glasses & a general refresh
We know it takes time, so the whole lunchtime will need extending to fit