A SCHEME to provide hot school meals at lunchtime is being expanded – with plans in place to eventually offer them at all primaries – according to the newly elected Children’s and Education Minister.
Deputy Inna Gardiner said the initiative, which is a collaboration between the government and local charity Caring Cooks, provides lunches at Janvrin, Samarès, St Luke’s, St Martin’s and St Peter’s schools but that a further 12 were developing serving areas to enable them to join the programme.
Another serving area at Springfield School is due to be completed before the end of the summer holiday, pending a planning application for additional outdoor storage.
The programme allows each student to receive a nutritionally balanced main meal and a dessert for £2.50, with many students – such as those with families on income support – eligible for free meals.
Deputy Gardiner said: ‘I understand that we must provide nutritional meals and I know that Caring Cooks do an amazing job. They will be our consultant and main guidance and we need to see how we create the system.’
She added that she had asked to have meetings with head teachers to discuss the need for the programme and whether it would be possible to deliver it in every school.
‘The goal and delivery is clear,’ she said.
‘It’s not about if we should give school meals, it is just about whether schools can accommodate the service from September. We have plans to deliver it [to all primary schools] by 2024 but we need to check whether it’s possible to do it earlier.’
She made the comments after visiting Springfield School and La Petite École nursery with Chief Minister Kristina Moore to discuss investment in early years education and school meals.
Deputy Moore said: ‘There is clearly some work to be done in terms of how we can hasten the delivery of this scheme.’
At the end of last year, students at Victoria College called for the pilot scheme to be expanded to all schools, after they were inspired by England footballer Marcus Rashford’s successful free school meals campaign.
Deputy Moore said: ‘I think the boys at Victoria College were right – nutrition is an important part of every person’s day.’
She added: ‘We are just starting to understand the current financial position and we have our priorities that we want to work on. I think that will be high on our list of things that we want to achieve.’
Commenting on the rising cost of living, she said: ‘An increasing group of people are feeling the pinch and, as we head towards winter, we have made commitments that this will be at the forefront of our thinking and that is why we are going to be bringing forward a mini budget for debate in the first [States] sitting in September.’
Deputy Moore said also that the new government would ‘prioritise support’ for families by ensuring that early-years education was ‘well resourced and accessible to all’.
