Government to send dinner ladies back to school
Dinner ladies will be required to undertake fresh training as part of a £280 million Government initiative to improve school dinners.
Training will be provided for around 15,000 staff from next year in an attempt to boost standards in school kitchens.
Education Secretary Ruth Kelly is expected to highlight the “crucial” role school dinner ladies play when she addresses a Unison conference in London on Wednesday.
Ms Kelly will say: “The new vocational qualification will recognise for the first time the crucial skills and experience that dinner ladies, school cooks and support staff bring to their work. “
“It will ensure that everyone in the school kitchen aspires to the same high standards.”
Government plans to improve school meals follow a high profile campaign by TV chef Jamie Oliver, who handed Tony Blair a petition signed by 270,000 members of the public following his successful Channel 4 series, Jamie’s School Dinners.
Ministers have now pledged to spend an extra £280 million on improving school cuisine over the next three years.
Schools and local education authorities will receive an additional £220 million to spend on ingredients to ensure at least 50p is spent on dinners for primary school pupils. At least 60p will be spent on meals for secondary school children.
The Schools Food Trust, which will receive £60 million, is investigating how schools can get out of unsatisfactory catering contracts and whether to ban certain junk food.
From September, schools must adopt tough nutritional standards, which will be subject to inspection by OFSTED a year later.
