East End Health - School Food Panel

The Newcastle School Food Children's Panel was set up by East End Health and the Newcastle School Food Parent Action Network.

The aim of the panel is to enable children to use their vocies in creative ways to bring about improvements t the food served in their schools.

A pilot scheme was carried out in April 2008 in the ten 'Lean East' primary schools. The schools were asked to select representatives from Years 5 and 6 to become Panel Members.

Eight schools signed up for the initative giving is an initial panel of eighteen members. The panel members took part in three missions:

Complete a questionniare on school food
Make a school food video diary
Collect comments from children and staff about school food

The schools which took part in the project were:


	We worked in partnership with Newcastle United's Foundation to host the conference at St James' Park on 11th July 2008. The day began with a delicious picnic in Leazes Park for the panel members, where they enjoyed a healthy picnic lunch from local organic food store, The Honey Tree.

We had presentations by: Liz Kelley - Personal Chef to the Newcastle United First Team Paul Flynn - North East Co-ordinator of the Food for Life Partnership Jackie Schneider - Chair of Merton Parents for Better Food in Schools Julia Statham - Chair of Newcastle School Food Parent Action Network Our guests included representatives from Newcastle Primary Care Trust, Newcastle City Council and representatives from the Community and Voluntary Sector. Each school gave a presentation of their findings and played their video diary. The videos were excellent and were received very well by the audience.
	Across the eight schools there were some consistent patterns regarding the children's ideas and opinions, these were: School meals should be made from fresh ingredients wherever possible The lunch queues are too long and the children need more time to eat They would like the dinner halls to be improved. Ideas included introducing tablecloths and music. They would like to eat off plates rather than trays. Cathering staff were happy and helpful and in many of the schools they encouraged the children to try new foods. Portion sizes were too small. The food needs to look and taste better.

Walkergate Priamry School was represented by two Year 5 students, Nathan and Rachael.

As a result of their hard work, Nathan and Rachael foudn that their school meals were often made from a limited range of ingredients.

They thought that there should be more tasty foods on offer, as the food was sometimes bland. They would also like to see more varied foods.


	Following the conferencethe children enjoyed a guided tour of St James' Park, where they were able to visit the dug-out, as well as the home-team changing room.

Jamie Sadler, Director of East End Health, made a number of recommendations as a result of the childrens findings, these were:

To work towards the aim of having all Primary and Secondary schools in Newcastle respresented on the Children's School Food Panel
To create formal working channels between the Children's School Food Panel and:
Head Teachers
The Food in Schools Group
The School Meals Providers
Panel Members to be consulted on all new future menus, recipes and any other planned developments regarding school food.

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