Everyone can be part of the Food for Life Partnership

Together, we are revolutionising school meals, connecting young people with where their food comes from and inspiring families and communities to grow and cook food.
Over 3,000 schools signed up so far
125,000 people in the wider community are benefiting
Over 225,000 children eating Food for Life accredited meals every day
19% reported increase in school meal take-up in award schools*
Farmers, caterers, schools, communities... Join the movement for a healthy, climate-friendly and vibrant food culture.
What you say…
“Being part of the Food for Life Partnership has raised the aspiration and achievement of staff and students. Our work with the programme has considerably contributed to the school being judged as ‘outstanding’ in our Ofsted inspection.”
Aidan Smith, vice-principal
Kirk Hallam Community Technology College, Nottingham
 

* Note: In November 2010 our data from awarded schools (75 of 185 schools) shows the average increase in school-meal take up from enrolment to most recent award is 19%
 

Our work 2010

Read our annual review to find out about all the fantastic achievements of Food for Life Partnership schools in 2010. You’ve been transforming food culture across England and the successes are being recognised. Here’s what Dr Sarah Wollaston, MP for Totnes and member of the Health Select Committee, had to say when she visited Collaton St Mary Primary school in Devon.
“The dramatic increase in diet-related illnesses shows just how important it is that we teach young people the skills they need to feed themselves healthily. The Food for Life Partnership embeds these skills into school life and reaches out even further into the community.”

New website for secondary students and teachers

Stuffed, the Partnership’s new website for secondary schools, helps young people explore some of the issues we have with our current food systems. Online debates ask how climate change will affect our food supplies, what impact peak oil will have on how we currently feed ourselves, and if we really pay the full price for food at the supermarket checkouts. There are no answers here, just information and opinions that will help to inform, affirm or challenge how young people think about food. Each debate has lesson plans and resources - relevant articles, weblinks and information.
What you say
"Having been round the site, I like it! Great to have all the links ready done, including graphs, real interviews and media clips. It connects thinking and helps to foster our integration of learning in a skills based framework."
Joy Clapham, Deputy Headteacher SENCO, Humphrey Perkins High School
www.stuffedonline.org

Food for Life Partnership Tip of the Week

This year we want to help as many schools as possible to achieve one of the Food for Life Partnership awards. We’ll be sending you a Tip of the Week email every Tuesday packed with advice, case studies and free resources. Watch out for the first one tomorrow.

Spread the word

Pass it on – Going for Bronze
Bronze awards events will be happening around the country this year. Matthew Slaney, 10, at Bolsover Junior School sets the scene for the Bronze celebration event and awards presentation, which took place at his school last November. He said, “We have achieved lots at our school! We’re growing our own food and using it in our cooking club and in our school dinners and I would like other schools to achieve the same. It’s a nice feeling to share everything we have done with the other teachers and children that are here today.”
Read more about the Bolsover event
For a full list of Pass it on events check out the Food for Life Partnership website
Blog of the week
This term, the best blog each week will win a cookbook written by famous dinner lady and Food for Life Partnership school meals policy advisor Jeanette Orrey. Jam-packed with recipes specifically tailored for schools, this will help to transform your school food! Keep an eye on the winners here
Login and update your blog
Case studies
Developing a whole school education approach to food
Find out how Year 4 pupils at St Peter’s School in Wem enjoy the full range of Food for Life Partnership activities during their lessons.
Involving the community – A small school with big ideas
Headteacher Jenny Heizelmann tells us how Barkway VA First School manages to involve the local community in spite of its isolated location, and why the Food for Life Partnership “more than matches our dreams!”
For more case studies check out the website

This spring…

Growing
You can plant garlic and fruit trees/bushes outside now and start to sow under cloches in February. Try planting salads, broad beans, peas and radishes. Don’t forget to buy your seed potatoes ready for "chitting".
Check out seasonal gardening tips and find out what you can focus on in the school garden over the next months.
For suitable varieties and further information check out the Garden Organic seed catalogue.www.organiccatalogue.com
Cooking
Try this warming soup recipe that makes great use of seasonal parsnips. Fresh thyme may have survived the bad weather but dried thyme can be used if not.
Farm Links - Lambing time!
Spring is a great time to get out onto the farm and experience all new life, a particularly special experience being lambing. Just by seeing lambs being born, watching them feed and bond with their mothers offers a wealth of learning opportunities - lifecycles; animal welfare; animal husbandry and can be a stimulus for discussion around ethics, sustainable diets and eating meat and much more.
This is a very busy time of year for farm visits so book early to avoid disappointment! Find a farm near you.

Awards

The number of Food for Life Partnership award schools now exceeds 200 and in December we celebrated the successes of Gold and Silver schools in the South East, East of England and London at our award ceremony in Central Hall, Westminster.
Celebrity and TV personality Fern Britton presented the awards saying, “These children and their families are celebrating good food and best of all it's giving them what will probably be some of the most enjoyable experiences of their school lives."
Find out more
Going for Bronze
Huge congratulations also go to the 55 schools who have achieved Bronze in the last term. Getting your Bronze award is the first step to food culture transformation, and it has many more benefits than what you may first think. Our schools have told us how working towards their Bronze award has improved school meal take up, attendance, increased confidence of staff and ofsted outcomes just to name a few.
Find out more about the benefits of getting to Bronze
The next award ceremony…
Will be taking place in March. We’ll be awarding Gold and Silver schools from across the Midlands. Are you a Midlands school going for Gold or Silver? Let know our awards coordinator Liz know that you’re going to apply as soon as possible (email: lbutterfield@soilassociation.org) and send in your application by 30 January

Stay up to date

We publish all our latest news on the website… a great way to keep up to date with what’s happening around school food policy, find out about available funding for schools and hear about the achievements of schools plus much more. Find out what's happening and subscribe to our RSS feeds.

Save our school dinners

There have been worrying signs from the Government that school meals are not going to be given the protection they need from the coming budget cuts. We simply cannot afford to put the brakes on the progress being made in the way we feed our children in schools and the way we educate them to feed themselves in future life. The Food for Life Partnership has released a letter signed by 50 headteachers calling on the Government to provide continued support for good food in schools. We’ve also handed Sarah Teather, Minister of State for Children and Families, a petition calling on Government to ‘Save our School Dinners!’ and protect school food during the changes to school budgets. Find out more and read our new report, ‘Return of the Turkey Twizzler’, that outlines how cost cuts are threatening the school food revolution.

Join us at the Education Show

If you are planning to visit the Education Show in Birmingham on 17 -19 March 2011, pop by our stand to talk to a member of the Food for Life Partnership team. Come along to our seminar in the Secondary Theatre on Friday 18 March at 11am to find out how the Food for Life Partnership has a positive impact on school life and to hear how a Gold secondary school, St Katherine's School, has benefited from being part of the programme.

Whose Curriculum Is It Anyway?

The Food for Life Partnership will be at Whole Education’s ‘Whose Curriculum Is It Anyway?’ events – a one-stop shop for schools interested in making learning more relevant and engaging and helping young people develop the skills, qualities and knowledge they will need for the future. Come along to our stand, we'd love to meet you and can offer help and support to help you transform your food culture. There will also be representatives from a Food for Life Partnership Flagship School who can tell you about their experiences.
Bristol (2 Feb)
Newcastle (8 Feb)
Manchester (9 Feb)
London (May – date to be confirmed)
Food for Life Partnership schools can get a 20% discount off the booking fee. If you’d like to book online, please follow the relevant link and enter 'EarlyFfLP0211' to receive your discount.

Training

Don’t forget we provide FREE Continuing Professional Development training opportunities throughout the year, all listed on our website.