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Leigh Withers's avatar

In my old school, after Covid, we decided to cease break time

service and just serve free fruit for everyone. Lunchtime was just a choice of one meal or a jacket potato or sandwich. It reduced costs and meant we had total oversight of what the kids were eating. We had already started free breakfasts for everyone and kept that going. It’s still the same now. Parents were no longer getting into arrears as their child could only get the one meal on offer that day.

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Benjamin Parnell's avatar

Cracking Leigh - which school was this?

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Leigh Withers's avatar

MAP. In the first term after lockdown 1 we actually made all meals free, serving the one meal for all but the cost became prohibitive. But we stuck with the principle of removing choice and all the unhealthy snacks. I’d say there was an uptick in pack lunches that persists to this day. I didn’t feel that it was the right thing to ban these, though I’m

open to challenge on that. The lunches the children bought in were mostly pretty unhealthy. So overall it was a partial as opposed to complete success.

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Benjamin Parnell's avatar

Well done on being ahead of the curve on this

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