LACA’s National School Meals Week on 11-19 November will once again see activities take place around the country celebrating all that is great about healthy school meals. Here’s what is happening this year to inspire your preparations National School Meals Week (NSMW), hosted by LACA, is a week’s worth of activities across the country, celebrating all that is great about the modern school meal. As well as providing nutrition, energy and enjoyment to pupils, the benefits stretch far wider to include better health, wellbeing, behaviour, concentration and academic attainment. The week, which takes place 11-19 November, also celebrates the people behind the meals, who work tirelessly to make sure pupils have a healthy and delicious prepared meal. There will be a number of events taking place during the week, with a mixture of political activity, schoolbased events and engagement with school caterers, pupils and parents. Schools are invited to start thinking about how they will get involved in the event.
Catering
Thinking ahead to National School Meals Week
journalists, dignitaries and the public to enjoy some freshly prepared school food. This will be an opportunity to promote some of the less well known facts about a school lunch and tackle outdated perceptions. It will also encourage pupils who currently don’t take a school meal to try one. ‘Move it with LACA‘ will include a number of initiatives to get pupils moving during NSMW, and will be tied in with the ‘daily mile’ campaign which is popular in schools. As in previous years, LACA is planning to serve a school lunch at the Palace of Westminster so that MPs can try for themselves how great a modern school meal is. It is also a great opportunity to highlight the importance of policy and government support when it comes to school food. Last year, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Children and Families, Nadhim Zahawi MP addressed the guests and spoke about the importance of children having a hot, healthy and nutritious two-course lunch on a daily basis. The Minister’s comments endorsed the messages that LACA had been taking around the country about the qualities and benefits of a school meal.
What’s new for NSMW 2019? As LACA celebrates its 30th year, NSMW will have a new campaign called ‘#30 people, 30 stories’, which will uncover the stories behind everyone involved in putting a school lunch on the table. This includes the farmer that produces the food, the delivery driver that brings the food to the school kitchen, An event that has evolved the cook, the kitchen assistant, the school Neil Porter, LACA chair of events, comments leadership teams, and the MPs fighting on how NSMW has evolved since its inception: to protect funding for school meals. “There is no doubt in my mind that when One such ‘school meal hero’ is MP Sharon the LACA Board launched NSMW that they Hodgson who has been the education had great vision in creating a platform catering industry’s champion and standard for communication of the great work that bearer in the House of Commons for virtually school caterers were – and still the last ten years, as well as Chair are – doing that was going of the School Food APPG. largely unheralded. There will be a ‘Taste For N ational “Since that time, NSMW Yourself’ road show, which School has evolved into a will go to England and Meal flagship event E Wales inviting parents,
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